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i'OEMS 



WRITTEN IN EAELY YOUTH 



POEMS 



WRITTEN IN EARLY YOUTH 



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NEW YORK 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1898 

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COPYKIOHT, 1898, BY 

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POEMS WRITTEN 
IN EARLY YOUTH 

POEMS 
1851 



POEMS 1851 



THE OLIVE BRANCH 

A dove flew with an Olive Branch; 
It crossed the sea and reached the shore, 
And on a ship about to launch, 
Dropped down the happy sign it bore. 

* An omen ' rang- the glad acclaim! 
The Captain stooped and picked it up, 

• Be then the Olive Branch her name,' 
Cried she who flung the christening cup. 

The vessel took the laughing tides; 
It was a joyous revelry 
To see her dashing from her sides 
The rough, salt kisses of the sea. 

And forth into the bursting foam 
She spread her sail and sped away, 
The rolling surge her restless home. 
Her incense wreaths the showering spray. 

Far out, and where the riot waves 
Eun mingling in tumultuous throngs, 
She danced above a thousand graves, 
And heard a thousand briny songs. 

Tier mission with her manlj^ crew. 
Her flag unfurl'd, her title told, 
She took the Old World to the New, 
And brought the New World to the Old. 
3 



POEMS WKITTEN IN YOUTH 

Secure of friendliest welcomings, 
She swam the havens sheening fair; 
Secure upon her glad white wings, 
She fluttered on the ocean air. 

To her no more the bastioned fort 
Shot out its swarthy tongue of fire; 
From bay to bay, from port to port, 
Her coming was the world's desire. 

And tho' the tempest lashed her oft. 
And tho' the rocks had hungry teeth. 
And lightnings split the masts aloft, 
And thunders shook the planks beneath. 

And tho' the storm, self-willed and blind. 
Made tatters of her dauntless sail, 
And all the wildness of the wind 
Was loosed on her, she did not fail; 

But gallantly she ploughed the main. 
And gloriously her welcome pealed. 
And grandly shone to sky and plain 
The goodly bales her decks revealed; 

Brought from the fruitful eastern glebes 
Where blow the gusts of balm and spice. 
Or where the black blockaded ribs 
Are jammed 'mongst ghostly fleets of ice, 

Or where upon the curling hills 
Glow clusters of the bright-eyed grape, 
Or where the hand of labour drills 
The stubbornness of earth to shape. 

Rich harvestings and wealthy germs, 
And handicrafts and shapely wares. 
And spinnings of the hermit worms, 
And fruits that bloom by lions' lairs- 
4 



POEMS WKITTEN IN YOUTH 

Come, read the meaning' of the deep! 
The use of winds and waters learn! 
'Tis not to make the mother weep 
For sons that never will return ; 

'Tis not to make the nations show 
Contempt for all whom seas divide; 
'Tis not to pamper war and woe, 
Nor feed traditionary pride; 

'Tis not to make the floating- bulk 
Mask death upon its slippery deck, 
Itself in turn a shattered hulk, 
A ghastly raft, a bleeding wreck. 

It is to knit with loving lip 
The interests of land to land; 
To join in far-seen fellowship 
The tropic and the polar strand. 

It is to make that foaming Strength 
Whose rebel forces wrestle still 
Thro' all his boundaried breadth and length, 
Become a vassal to our will. 

It is to make the various skies. 
And all the various fruits they vaunt. 
And all the dowers of earth we prize. 
Subservient to our household want. 

And more, for knowledge crowns the gain 
Of intercourse with other souls. 
And Wisdom travels not in vain 
The plunging si^aces of the poles. 

The wild Atlantic's weltering gloom. 
Earth-clasping seas of North and South, 
The Baltic with its amber spume, 
The Caspian with its frozen mouth; 
5 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

The broad Pacific, basking bright. 
And girdling lands of liistrons growth, 
Vast continents and isles of light. 
Dumb tracts of undiscovered sloth. 

She visits these, traversing each; 
They ripen to the common sun; 
Thro' diverse forms and different speech, 
The world's humanity is one, 

O may her voice have power to say 
How soon the wrecking discords cease, 
When every wandering wave is gay 
With golden argosies of peace! 

Now when the ark of human fate, 
Long baffled by the wayward wind. 
Is drifting with its peopled freight. 
Safe haven on the heights to find; 

Safe haven from the drowning slime 
Of evil deeds and Deluge wrath; — 
To plant again the foot of Time 
Upon a purer, firmer path; 

'Tis now the hour to probe the ground, 
To watch the Heavens, to speak the word. 
The fathoms of the deep to sound. 
And send abroad the missioned bird. 

On strengthened wing for evermore, 
Let Science, swiftlj^ as she can. 
Fly seaward on from shore to shore. 
And bind the links of man to man; 

And like that fair propitious Dove, 
Bless future fleets about to laimch; 
Make every freight a freight of love, 
And every ship an Olive Branch. 
6 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 



SONG 

Love within the lover's breast 
Burns like Hesper in the west, 
O'er the ashes of the sun, 
Till the day and night are done; 
Then when dawn drives up her car- 
Lo! it is the morning star. 

Love! thy love pours down on mine 
As the sunlight on the vine, 
As the snow-rill on the vale. 
As the salt breeze in the sail; 
As the song unto the bird. 
On my lips thy name is heard. 

As a dewdrop on the rose 

In thy heart my passion glows, 

As a skylark to the sky, 

Up into thy breast I fly; 

As a sea-shell of the sea 

Ever shall I sing of thee. 



THE WILD ROSE AND THE SNOWDROP 

The Snowdrop is the prophet of the flowers; 
It lives and dies upon its bed of snows; 
And like a thought of spring it comes and goes, 
Hanging its head beside our leafless bowers. 
The sun's betrothing kiss it never knows. 
Nor all the glowing joy of golden showers; 
But ever in a placid, pure repose, 
More like a spirit with its look serene, 
Droops its pale cheek veined thro' with infant green. 
7 



POEMS WEITTEN IN YOUTH 

Queen of her sisters is the sweet Wild Rose, 
Sprung from the earnest sun and ripe young June; 
The year's own darling and the Summer's Queen! 
Lustrous as the new-throned crescent moon. 
Much of that early prophet look she shows, 
Mixed with her fair espoused blush which glows, 
As if the ethereal fairy blood were seen; 
Like a soft evening over sunset snows, 
Half twilight violet shade, half crimson sheen. 

Twin-born are both in beauteousness, most fair 
In all that glads the eye and charms the air; 
In all that wakes emotions in the mind 
And sows sweet sympathies for human kind. 
Twin-born, albeit their seasons are apart. 
They bloom together in the thoughtful heart; 
Fair symbols of the marvels of our state. 
Mute speakers of the oracles of fate! 

For each fulfilling nature's law, fulfils 

Itself and its own aspirations pure; 

Living and dying; letting faith ensure 

New life when deathless Spring shall touch the hills. 

Each perfect in its place; and each content 

With that perfection which its being meant; 

Divided not by months that intervene. 

But linked by all the flowers that bud between. 

Forever smiling thro' its season brief. 

The one in glory and the one in grief: 

Forever painting to our museful sight. 

How lowlihead and loveliness unite. 

Born from the first blind yearning of the earth 
To be a mother and give happy birth, 
Ere yet the northern sun such rapture brings, 
Lo, from her virgin breast the Snowdrop springs; 
And ere the snows have melted from the grass, 
And not a strip of greensward doth appear. 
Save the faint prophecy its cheeks declare, 
8 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

Alone, unkissed, unloved, behold it pass! 
While in the ripe enthronement of the year. 
Whispering the breeze, and wedding the rich air 
With her so sweet, delicious bridal breath, — 
Odorous and exquisite beyond compare. 
And starr'd with dews upon her forehead clear, 
Fresh-hearted as a Maiden Queen should be 
Who takes the land's devotion as her fee, — 
The Wild Rose blooms, all summer for her dower, 
Nature's most beautiful and perfect iiower. 



THE DEATH OF WINTER 

When April with her wild blue eye 
Comes dancing over the grass. 
And all the crimson birds so shy 

Peep out to see her pass; 
As lightly she loosens her showery locks 
And flutters her rainy wings; 
Laughingly stoops 

To the glass of the stream, 
And loosens and loops 

Her hair by the gleam. 
While all the young villagers blithe as the flocks 

Go frolicking round in rings; — 
Then Winter, he who tamed the fly, 
Turns on his back and prepares to die, 
For he cannot live longer under the sky. 

Down the valleys glittering green, 
Down from the hills in snowy rills. 
He melts between the border sheen 

And leaps the flowery verges! 
He cannot choose, but brighten their hues. 
And tho' he would creep, he fain must leap. 

For the quick Spring spirit urges. 
9 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

Down the vale and clown the dale, 

He leaps and lights, till his moments fail, 

Buried in blossoms, red and pale, 

While the sweet birds sing his dirges! 

O Winter! I'd live that life of thine, 
With a frosty brow and an icicle tongue, 
And never a song my whole life long, — 
Were such delicious burial mine! 
To die and be buried, and so remain 
A wandering brook in April's train. 
Fixing my dying eyes for aye 
On the dawning brows of maiden May. 



SONG 

The moon is alone in the sky 

As thou in my soul; 
The sea takes her image to lie 
Where the white ripples roll 
All night in a dream, 
With the light of her beam, 
Hushedly, mournfidly, mistily up to the shore. 
The pebbles speak low 
In the ebb and the flow. 
As I when thy voice came at intervals, tuned to adore: 
Nought other stirred 
Save my heart all unheard 
Beating to bliss that is past evermore. 



10 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 



JOHN Lx\CKLAND 

A wicked man is bad enougli on earth; 
But O the baleful lustre of a chief 
Once pledged in tyranny! O star of dearth 
Darkly illumining a nation's grief! 
How many men have worn thee on their brows! 
Alas for them and us! God's precious gift 
Of gracious dispensation got by theft — 
The damning form of false unholy vows! 
The thief of God and man must have his fee: 
And thou John Lackland, despicable prince — 
Basest of England's banes before or since! 
Thrice traitor, coward, thief! O thou shalt be 
The historic warning, trampled and abhorr'd 
Who dared to steal and stain the symbols of the Lord! 



THE SLEEPING CITY 

A princess in the eastern tale 
Paced thro' a marble city pale, 
And saw on ghastly shapes of stone, 
The sculptured life she breathed alone; 

Saw, where'er her eye might range. 
Herself the only child of change; 
And heard her echoed footfall chime 
Between Oblivion and Time; 

And in the squares where fountains played, 
And up the spiral balustrade, 
Along the drowsy corridors. 
Even to the inmost sleeping floors, 
11 



POEMS WEITTEN IN YOUTH 

Surveyed in wonder chilled with dread, 
The seemingness of Death, not dead; 
Life's semblance but without its storm, 
And silence frosting every form; 

Crowned figures, cold and grouping slaves, 

Like suddenly arrested waves 

About to sink, about to rise, — 

Strange meaning in their stricken eyes. 

And cloths and couches live with flame 
Of leopards fierce and lions tame, 
And hunters in the jungle reed. 
Thrown out by sombre glowing brede; 

Dumb chambers hushed with fold on fold, 
And cumbrous gorgeousness of gold; 
White casements o'er embroidered seats. 
Looking on solitudes of streets, — 

On palaces and column'd towers. 
Unconscious of the stony hours; 
Harsh gateways startled at a sound, 
With burning lamps all burnish'd round; — 

Surveyed in awe this wealth and state. 
Touched by the finger of a Fate, 
And drew with slow-awakening fear. 
The sternness of the atmosphere; — 

And gradually with stealthier foot. 
Became herself a thing as mute. 
And listened, — while with swift alarm 
Her alien heart shrank from the charm; 

Yet as her thoughts dilating rose. 
Took glory in the great repose. 
And over every postured form 
Spread lava-like and brooded warm, — 

13 



POEMS WKITTEN IN YOUTH 

And fixed on every frozen face. 

Beheld the record of its race, 

And in each chiselled feature knew 

The stormy life that once blushed thro'; — 

The ever-present of the past 
There written; all that lightened last, 
Love, anguish, hope, disease, despair. 
Beauty and rage, all written there; — 

Enchanted Passions! whose pale doom 
Is never flushed by blight or bloom. 
But sentinelled by silent orbs. 
Whose light the pallid scene absorbs. — 

Like such a one I pace along 

This City with its sleeping throng; 

Like her with dread and awe, that turns 

To rapture, and sublimely yearns; — 

For now the quiet stars look down 

On lights as quiet as their own; 

The streets that groaned with traffic, show 

As if with silence paved below; 

The latest revellers are at peace. 
The signs of in-door tumult cease, 
From gay saloon and low resort. 
Comes not one murmur or report: 

The clattering chariot rolls not by. 
The windows show no waking eye, 
The houses smoke not, and the air 
Is clear, and all the midnight fair. 

The centre of the striving world. 
Pound which the human fate is curled, 
To which the future crieth wild, — 
Is pillowed like a cradled child. 

13 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

The palace roof that guards a crown. 
The mansion swathed in dreamy down, 
Hovel, court, and alley-shed, 
Sleep in the calmness of the dead. 

Now while the many-motived heart 
Lies hushed — fireside and busy mart, 
And mortal pulses beat the tune, 
That charms the calm cold ear o' the moon 

Whose yellowing crescent down the West 
Leans listening, now when every breast 
Its basest or its purest heaves. 
The soul that joys, the soul that grieves; — 

While Fame is crowning happy brows 
That day will blindly scorn, while vows 
Of anguished love long hidden, speak 
From faltering tongue and flushing cheek; 

The language only known to dreams, 
Eich eloquence of rosy themes! 
While on the Beauty's folded mouth. 
Disdain just wrinkles baby youth; 

While Poverty dispenses alms 
To outcasts, bread, and healing balms; 
While old Mammon knows himself 
The greatest beggar for his pelf; 

While noble things in darkness grope, 
The Statesman's aim, the Poet's hope; 
The Patriot's impulse gathers fire, 
And germs of future fruits aspire; — 

Now while dumb nature owns its links. 
And from one common fountain drinks, 
Methinks in all around I see 
This Picture in Eternity; — 

14 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

A marbled City planted there 
With all its pageants and despair; 
A peopled hush, a Death not dead, 
But stricken with Medusa's head; — 

And in the Gorgon's glance for aye 
The lifeless immortality 
Keveals in sculptured calmness all 
Its latest life beyond recall. 



THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

Grey with all honours of age! but fresh-featured and 
ruddy 

As dawn when the drowsy farm-yard has thrice heard 
Chaunticlere. 

Tender to tearfulness — childlike, and manly, and moth- 
erly; 
Here beats true English blood richest joyance on sweet Eng- 
lish ground. 



THE POETRY OF SPENSER 

Lakes where the sunsheen is mystic with splendour and 

softness; 
Vales where sweet life is all Summer with golden romance; 
Forests that glimmer with twilight round revel-bright 

palaces; 
Here in our May-blood we wander, careering 'mongst ladies 

and knights. 



15 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 



THE POETEY OF SHAKESPEARE 

Picture some Isle smiling green 'mid the white-foaming 

ocean; — 
Full of old woods, leafy wisdoms, and frolicsome fays; 
Passions and pageants; sweet love singing bird-like 

above it; 
Life in all shapes, aims, and fates, is there warm'd by one 

great human heart. 



THE POETRY OF MILTON 

Like to some deep-chested organ whose grand inspiration, 
Serenely majestic in utterance, lofty and calm. 
Interprets to mortals with melody great as its burthen. 
The mystical harmonies chiming for ever throughout the 
bright spheres. 



THE POETRY OF SOUTHEY 

Keen as an eagle whose flight towards the dim empyrean 
Fearless of toil or fatigue ever royally wends! 
Vast in the cloud-coloured robes of the balm-breathing 
Orient 
Lo! the grand Epic advances, unfolding the humanest truth. 



16 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 



THE POETEY OF COLERIDGE 

A brook glancing under green leaves, self-delighting, ex- 
ulting, 
And full of a gurgling melody ever renew^ed — 
Renewed thro' all changes of Heaven, unceasing in sun- 
light, 
Unceasing in moonlight, but hushed in the beams of the 
holier orb. 



THE POETEY OF SHELLEY 

See'st thou a Skylark whose glistening winglets ascending 
Quiver like pulses beneath the melodious dawn? 
Deep in the heart-yearning distance of heaven it flutters — 
Wisdom and beauty and love are the treasures it brings down 
at eve. 



TH:E POETEY OF WOEDSWOETH 

A breath of the mountains, fresh born in the regions 
majestic, 

That look with their eye-daring summits deei) into the sky. 

The voice of great Nature; sublime with her lofty con- 
ceptions, 
Yet earnest and simple as any sweet child of the green lowly 
vale. 



17 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 



THE POETEY OF KEATS 

The song of a nigMingale sent thro' a slumbrous valley, 
Low-lidded with twilight, and tranced with the dolorous 

sound, 
Tranced with a tender enchantment; the yearning of 

passion 
That wins immortality even while panting delirious with 

death. 



VIOLETS 

Violets, shy violets! 

How many hearts w^ith you compare! 

Who hide themselves in thickest green, 
And thence unseen, 
Eavish the enraptured air 
With sweetness, dewy fresh and rare! 

Violets, shy violets! 

Human hearts to me shall be 

Viewless violets in the grass. 
And as I pass, 
Odours and sweet imagery 
Will wait on mine and gladden me! 



18 



POEMS WKITTEN IN YOUTH 



ANGELIC LOVE 

Angelic love that stoops with heavenly lips 

To meet its eartlily mate; 
Heroic love that to its sphere's eclipse, 

Can dare to join its fate 
With one beloved devoted human heart, 
And share with it the passion and the smart, 
The undying bliss 
Of its most fleeting kiss; 
The fading grace 
Of its most sweet embrace: — 
Angelic love, heroic love! 
Whose birth can only be above. 
Whose wandering must be on earth, 
Whose haven where it first had birth! 
Love that can part with all but its own worth, 
And joy in every sacrifice 
That beautifies its Paradise! 
And gently like a golden-fruited vine. 
With earnest tenderness itself consign, 
And creeping up deliriously entwine 
Its dear delicious arms 

Round the beloved being! 
With fair unfolded charms, 

All-trusting, and all-seeing, — 
Grape-laden with full bunches of young wine! 
While to the panting heart's dry yearning drouth 
Buds the rich dewy mouth — 
Tenderly uplifted, 
Like two rose-leaves drifted 
Down in a long warm sigh of the sweet South! 
Such love, such love is thine. 
Such heart is mine 
O thou of mortal visions most divine! 



19 



POEMS WKITTEN IN YOUTH 



TWILIGHT MUSIC 

Know you the low pervading breeze 

That softly sings 
In the trembling leaves of twilight trees, 
As if the wind were dreaming on its wings? 
And have you marked their still degrees 
Of ebbing melody, like the strings 
Of a silver harp swept by a spirit's hand 
In some strange glimmering land, 
'Mid gushing springs, 
And glistenings 
Of waters and of planets, wild and grand! 
And have you marked in that still time, 
The chariots of those shining cars 
Brighten upon the hushing dark, 
And bent to hark 
That Voice, amid the poplar and the lime, 
Pause in the dilating lustre 

Of the spheral cluster; 
Pause but to renew its sweetness, deep 
As dreams of heaven to souls that sleep! 
And felt, despite earth's jarring wars, 
When day is done 
And dead the sun. 
Still a voice divine can sing. 
Still is there sympathy can bring 
A whisper from the stars! 
Ah, with this sentience quickly will you know, 
How like a tree I tremble to the tones 
Of your sweet voice! 
How keenly I rejoice 
When in me with sweet motions slow 
The spiritual music ebbs and moans — 
Lives in the lustre of those heavenly eyes. 
Dies in the light of its own paradise, — 
Dies, and relives eternal from its death. 
Immortal melodies in each deep breath; 
20 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

Sweeps thro' my being, bearing up to thee 
Myself, the weight of its eternity; 
Till nerved to life from its ordeal fire, 
It marries music with the human lyre, 
Blending divine delight with loveliest desire. 



REQUIEM 

Where faces are hueless, where eyelids are dewless, 
Where passion is silent and hearts never crave; 

Where thought hath no theme, and where sleep hath no dream, 
In patience and peace thou art gone — to thy grave! 

Gone where no warning can wake thee to morning. 
Dead tho' a thousand hands stretch'd out to save. 

Thou cam'st to us sighing, and singing and dying. 
How could it be otherwise, fair as thou wert? 

Placidly fading, and sinking and shading. 
At last to that shadow, the latest desert; 

Wasting and waning, but still, still remaining, 

Alas for the hand that could deal the death-hurt! 

The Summer that brightens, the Winter that whitens. 
The world and its voices, the sea and the sky. 

The bloom of creation, the tie of relation. 

All — all is a blank to thine ear and thine eye; 

The ear may not listen, the eye may not glisten. 
Nevermore waked by a smile or a sigh. 

The tree that is rootless must ever be fruitless; 

And thou art alone in thy death and thy birth; 
No last loving token of wedded love broken. 

No sign of thy singleness, sweetness and worth; 
Lost as the flower that is drowned in the shower, 

Fall'n like a snowflake to melt in the earth. 
31 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 



THE FLOWEE OF THE EUINS 

Take thy lute and sing- 
By the ruined castle walls, 
Where the torrent-foam falls, 
And long weeds wave: 

Take thy lute and sing, 
O'er the grey ancestral grave! 

Daughter of a King, 
Tune thy string. 

Sing of happy hours, 
In the roar of rushing time; 
Till all the echoes chime 
To the days gone by; 

Sing of passing hours 
To the ever-present sky; — 

Weep — and let the showers 
Wake thy flowers. 

Sing of glories gone: — 
No more the blazoned fold 
From the banner is unrolled; 
The gold sun is set. 

Sing his glory gone, 
For thy voice may charm him yet; 

Daughter of the dawn, 
He is gone! 

Pour forth all thy grief! 
Passionately sweep the chords, 
Wed them quivering to thy words; 
Wild words of wail! 

Shed thy withered grief — 
But hold not Autumn to thy bale 
The eddy of the leaf 
Must be brief! 
23 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

Sing" up to the nipfht: 
Hard it is for streaming tears 
To read the calmness of the spheres, 
Coldly they shine; 

Sing up to their light; 
They have views thou may'st divine — 

Gain prophetic sight 
From their light! 

On the windy hills 
Lo, the little harebell leans 
On the spire-grass that it queens, 
With bonnet blue; 

Trusting love instils 
Love and subject reverence true. 

Learn what love instils 
On the hills! 

By the bare wayside 
Placid snowdrops hang their cheeks. 
Softly touch'd with pale green streaks. 
Soon, soon, to die; 

On the clothed hedgeside 
Bands of rosy beauties vie. 

In their prophecied 
Summer pride. 

From the snowdrop learn; 
Not in her pale life lives she, 
But ip her blushing prophecy. 
Thus be thy hopes, 

Living but to yearn 
Upwards to the hidden copes; — 

Even within the urn 
Let them burn! 

Heroes of thj^ race — 
Warriors with golden crowns, 
Ghostly shapes with marbled frowns 
Stare thee to stone; 
23 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

Matrons of thy race 
Pass before thee making moan; 
Full of solemn grace 
Is their pace. 

Piteous their despair! 
Piteous their looks forlorn! 
Terrible their ghostly scorn! 
Still hold thou fast; — 

Heed not their despair! — 
Thou art thy future, not thy past; 

Let them glance and glare 
Thro' the air. 

Thou the ruin's bud, 
Be not that moist rich-smelling weed 
With its arras-sembled brede, 
And ruin-haunting stalk; 

Thou the ruin's bud. 
Be still the rose that lights the walk, 

Mix thy fragrant blood 
With the flood! 



THE RAPE OF AURORA 

Never, O never, 

Since dewy sweet Flora, 
Was ravished by Zephyr, 

Was such a thing heard 

In the valleys so hollow! 

Till rosy Aurora, 
Uprising as ever. 

Bright Phosphor to follow, 
Pale Phoebe to sever. 

Was caught like a bird 

To the breast of Apollo! 

24 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

Wildly she flutters, 

And flushes all over 
With passionate mutters 

Of shame to the hush 

Of his amorous whispers: 

But, such a lover 
Must win when he utters 

Thro' rosy red lispers, 
The pains that discover 

The wishes that gush 

From the torches of Hesperus. 

One finger just touching 

The Orient chamber, 
Unflooded the gushing 

Of light that illumed 

All her lustrous unveiling. 

On clouds of glow amber, 
Her limbs richly blushing, 

She lay sweetly wailing, 
In odours that gloomed 

On the God as he bloomed 

O'er her loveliness paling. 

Great Pan in his covert 

Beheld the rare glistening. 
The cry of the love-hurt, 

The sigh and the kiss 

Of the latest close mingling: 

But love, thought he, listening. 
Will not do a dove hurt 

I know, — and a tingling, 
Latent with bliss, 

Prickt thro' him, I wis. 

For the Nymph he was singling. 



25 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 



SOUTH-WEST WIND IN THE WOODLAND 

The silence of preluded song— 
yEolian silence charms the woods; 
Each tree a harp, whose foliaged strings 
Are waiting for the master's touch 
To sweep them into storms of joy, 
Stands mute and whispers not; the birds 
Brood dumb in their foreboding nests. 
Save here and there a chirp or tweet. 
That utters fear or anxious love. 
Or when the ouzel sends a swift 
Half warble, shrinking back again 
His golden bill, or when aloud 
The storm-cock warns the dusking hills 
And villages and valleys round: 
For lo, beneath those ragged clouds 
That skirt the opening west, a stream 
Of yellow light and windy flame 
SiDreads lengthening southward, and the sky 
Begins to gloom, and o'er the ground 
A moan of coming blasts creeps low 
And rustles in the crisinng grass; 
Till suddenly with mighty arms 
Outspread, that reach the horizon round. 
The great South-West drives o'er the earth. 
And loosens all his roaring robes 
Behind him, over heath and moor. 
He comes upon the neck of night, 
Like one that leaps a fiery steed 
Whose keen black haunches quivering shine 
With eagerness and haste, that needs 
No spur to make the dark leagues fly! 
Whose eyes are meteors of speed; 
Whose mane is as a flashing foam; 
Whose hoofs are travelling thunder-shocks; — 
26 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

He comes, and while his frrowing- gusts, 
Wild couriers of his reckless course 
Are whistling from the daggered gorse. 
And hurrying over fern and broom, 
Midway, far otf, he feigns to halt 
And gather in his streaming train. 

Now, whirring like an eagle's wing 
Preparing for a wide blue flight; 
Now, flapping like a sail that tacks 
And chides the wet bewildered mast; 
Now, screaming like an anguish'd thing 
Chased close by some down-breathing beak; 
Now, wailing like a breaking heart. 
That will not wholly break, but hopes 
With hope that knows itself in vain; 
Now, threatening like a storm-charged cloud; 
Now, cooing like a woodland dove; 
Now, up again in roar and wrath 
High soaring and wide sweeping; now 
With sudden fury dashing down 
Full-force on the awaiting woods. 

Long waited there, for aspens frail 
That tinkle with a silver bell. 
To warn the Zephyr of their love, 
When danger is at hand, and wake 
The neighbouring boughs, surrendering all 
Their prophet harmony of leaves. 
Had caught his earliest windward thought, 
And told it trembling; naked birk 
Down showering her dishevelled hair. 
And like a beauty yielding up 
Her fate to all the elements. 
Had swayed in answer; hazels close. 
Thick brambles and dark brushwood tufts, 
And briared brakes that line the dells 
With shaggy beetling brows, had sung 
Shrill music, while the tattered flaws 
27 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

Tore over them, and now the whole 

Tumultuous concords, seized at once 

With savage inspiration, — pine. 

And larch, and beech, and fir, and thorn, 

And ash, and oak, and oakling, rave 

And shriek, and shout, and whirl, and toss, 

And stretch their arms, and split, and crack, 

And bend their stems, and bow their heads, 

And grind, and groan, and lion-like 

Roar to the echo-peopled hills 

And ravenous wilds, and crake-like cry 

With harsh delight, and cave-like call 

With hollow mouth, and harp-like thrill 

With mighty melodies, sublime. 

From clumps of column'd pines that wave 

A lofty anthem to the sky. 

Fit music for a prophet's soul — 

And like an ocean gathering power, 

And murmuring deep, while down below, 

Reigns calm profound; — not trembling now 

The aspens, but like freshening waves 

That fall upon a shingly beach; — 

And round the oak a solemn roll 

Of organ harmony ascends. 

And in the upper foliage sounds 

A symphony of distant seas. 

The voice of natiire is abroad 
This night; she fills the air with balm; 
Her mystery is o'er the land; 
And who that hears her now and yields 
His being to her yearning tones. 
And seats his soul upon her wings, 
And broadens o'er the wind-SM'ept world 
With her, will gather in the flight 
More knowledge of her secret, more 
Delight in her beneficence. 
Than hours of musing, or the lore 
That lives with men coidd ever give! 
28 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

Nor will it pass away when morn 
Shall look upon the lulling leaves, 
And woodland sunshine, Eden-sweet, 
Dreams o'er the paths of peaceful shade ;- 
For every elemental power 
Is kindred to our hearts, and once 
Acknowledged, wedded, once embraced, 
Once taken to the unfettered sense, 
Once claspt into the naked life, 
The union is eternal. 



WILL 0' THE WISP 

Follow me, follow me, 
Over brake and under tree. 
Thro' the bosky tanglery, 

BrushAvood and bramble! 

Follow me, follow me, 

Laugh and leap and scramble! 

Follow, follow. 

Hill and hollow. 

Fosse and burrow. 

Fen and furrow, 
Down into the bidrush beds, 
'Midst the reeds and osier heads, 
In the rushy soaking damps. 
Where the vapours pitch their camps, 

Follow me, follow me. 

For a midnight ramble! 
O! what a mighty fog. 
What a merry night O ho! 
Follow, follow, nigher, nigher — 
Over bank, and pond, and briar, 
Down into the croaking ditches, 

Eotten log, 

Spotted frog, 

29 



POEMS WEITTEN IN YOUTH 

Beetle bright 

With crawling light, 

What a J03' O ho! 
Deep into the purple bog — 

What a joy O ho! 
Where like hosts of puckered witches, 
All the shivering agues sit 
Warming hands and chafing feet, 
By the blue marsh-hovering oils: 
O the fools for all their moans! 
Not a forest mad with fire 
Could still their teeth, or warm their bones. 
Or loose them from their chilly coils. 
What a clatter, 
How they chatter! 
Shrink and huddle. 
All a muddle, 

What a joy O ho! 
Down we go, down we go. 

What a joy O ho! 
Soon shall I be down below. 
Plunging with a grey fat friar, 
Hither, thither, to and fro, 
Breathing mists and whisking lamps. 
Plashing in the shiny swamps; 
While my cousin Lantern Jack, 
With cock ears and cunning eyes. 
Turns him round upon his back. 
Daubs him oozy green and black. 
Sits upon his rolling size. 
Where he lies, where he lies, 
Groaning full of sack — 
Staring with his great round eyes! 

What a joy O ho! 
Sits upon him in the swamps 
Breathing mists and whisking lamps! 

What a joy O ho! 
Such a lad is Lantern Jack, 
When he rides the black nightmare 
30 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

Through the fens, and puts a glare 
In the friar's track. 
Such a frolic lad, good lack! 
To turn a friar on his back, 
Trip him, clip him, whip him, nip him. 
Lay him sprawling, smack! 
Such a lad is Lantern Jack! 
Such a tricksy lad, good lack! 
What a joy O ho! 
Follow me, follow me. 
Where he sits, and you shall see! 



SONG 

Fair and false! No dawn will greet 

Thy waking beauty as of old; 
The little flower beneath thy feet 

Is alien to thy smile so cold; 
The merry bird flown up to meet 
Young morning from his nest i' the wheat, 

Scatters his joy to wood and wold, 

But scorns the arrogance of gold. 

False and fair! I scarce know why. 

But standing in the lonely air. 
And underneath the blessed sky, 

I plead for thee in my despair; — 
For thee cut off, both heart and eye 
From living truth; thy spring quite dry; 

For thee, that heaven my thought may share, 

Forget — how false! and think — how fair! 



81 



POEMS WllITTEN IN YOUTH 



SONG 

Two wedded lovers watched the rising moon, 

That with her strange mysterious beauty glowing, 
Over misty hills and waters flowing, 

Crowned the long twilight loveliness of June: 

And thus in me, and thus in me, they spake, 
The solemn secret of first love did wake. 

Above the hills the blushing orb arose; 

Her shape encircled by a radiant bower, 

In which the nightingale with charmed power. 

Poured forth enchantment o'er the dark repose: 
And thus in me, and thus in me they said, 
Earth's mists did with the sweet new spirit wed. 

Far up the sky with ever purer beam, 

Upon the throne of night the moon was seated. 
And down the valley glens the shades retreated. 

And silver light was on the open stream. 

And thus in me, and thus in me, they sighed, 
Aspiring Love has hallowed Passion's tide. 



SONG 

I cannot lose thee for a day, 

But like a bird with restless wing. 
My heart will find thee far away, 
And on thy bosom fall and sing, 

My nest is here, my rest is here; — 
And in the lull of wind and rain. 
Fresh voices make a sweet refrain, 

' His rest is there, his nest is there.' 
32 



POEMS WEITTEN IN YOUTH 

With thee the wind and sky are fair, 

But parted, both are strange and dark; 
And treacherous tlie quiet air 

That holds me sing-ing like a lark, 

O shield my love, strong arm above! 
Till in the hush of wind and rain, 
Fresh voices make a rich refrain, 

' The arm above, will shield thj^- love.' 



DAPHNE 

Musing on the fate of Daphne, 
Many feelings urged my breast, 
For the God so keen desiring. 
And the Nymph so deep distrest. 

NcA^r flashed thro' sylvan valley. 
Visions so divinely fair! 
He with early ardour glowing. 
She with rosy anguish rare. 

Only still more sweet and lovely 
For those terrors on her brows, 
Those swift glances wild and brilliant, 
Those delicious panting vows. 

Timidly the timid shoulders 
Shrinking from the fervid handl 
Dark the tide of hair back-flowing 
From the blue- veined temples bland! 

Lovely, too, divine Apollo 
In the speed of his pursuit; 
With his eye an azure lustre, 
And his voice a summer lute! 

33 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

Looking like some burnished eagle 
Hovering o'er a fluttered bird; 
Not unseen of silver Naiad, 
And of wistful Dryad heard! 

Many a morn the naked beauty 
Saw her bright reflection drown 
In the flowing smooth-faced river. 
While the god came sheening down. 

Down from Pindus bright Peneus 
Tells its muse-melodious source; 
Sacred is its fountained birthplace. 
And the Orient floods its course. 

Many a morn the sunny darling 
Saw the rising chariot-rays, 
From the winding river-reaches. 
Mellowing in amber haze. 

Thro' the flaming mountain gorges 
Lo, the River leaps the plain; 
Like a wild god-stridden courser. 
Tossing high its foamy mane. 

Then he swims thro' laurelled sunlight. 
Full of all sensations sweet, 
Misty with his morning incense, 
To the mirrored maiden's feet! 

Wet and bright tlie dinting pebbles 
Shine where oft she paused and stood; 
All hor dreamy warmth revolving. 
While the chilly waters wooed. 

Like to rosy-born Aurora, 
Glowing freshly into view, 
When her doubtful foot she ventures 
On the first cold morning blue. 
34 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

White as that Thessalian lily, 
Fairest Tempe's fairest flower, 
Lo, the tall Peneian virgin. 
Stands beneath her bathing bower. 

There the laurell'd wreaths o'erarching 
Crown 'd the dainty shuddering maid; 
There the dark prophetic laurel 
Kiss'd her with its sister shade. 

There the young green glistening leaflets 
Hush'd with love their breezy peal; 
There the little opening flowerets 
Blush'd beneath her vermeil heel! 

There among the conscious arbours, 
Sounds of soft tumultuous wail, 
Mysteries of love, melodious. 
Came upon the lyric gale! 

Breathings of a deep enchantment, 
Effluence of immortal grace. 
Flitted round her faltering footstep, 
Spread a balm about her face! 

Witless of the enamour'd presence. 
Like a dreamy lotus bud 
From its drowsy stem down-drooping, 
Gazed she in the glowing flood. 

Softly sweet with fluttering presage. 
Felt she that ethereal sense, 
Drinking charms of love delirious. 
Heaping bliss of love intense! 

All the air was thrill'd with sunrise. 
Birds made music of her name. 
And the god-impregnate water 
Claspt her image ere she came. 
35 



POEMS WKITTEN IN YOUTH 

Richer for that glance unconscious! 
Dearer for that soft dismay! 
And the sudden self-possession! 
And the smile as bright as day! 

Plunging 'mid her scattered tresses, 
With her blue invoking eyes; 
See her like a star descending! 
Like a rosebud see her rise! 

Like a rosebud in the morning 
Dashing off its jewell'd dews, 
Ere unfolding all its fragrance 
It is gathered by the muse! 

Beauteous in the foamy laughter, 
Bubbling round her shrinking waist, 
Lo! from locks and lips and eyelids 
Eain the glittering pearl-drops chaste! 

And about the maiden rapture 
Still the ruddy ripples play'd, 
Ebbing round in startled circlets 
When her arms began to wade. 

Flowing in like tides attracted, 
To the glowing crescent shine! 
Clasping her ambrosial whiteness 
Like an Autumn-tinted vine! 

Sinking low with love's emotion! 
Levying with look and tone 
All love's rosy arts to mimic 
Cytherea's magic zone! 

Trembling up with adoration 
To the crimson daisy tip. 
Budding from the snowy bosom — 
Fainter than the rose-red lip! 

86 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

Rising in a storm of wavelets, 
That for shelter, feigning fright, 
Prest to those twin-heaving havens, 
Harbour'd there beneath her light. 

Gleaming in a whirl of eddies 
Round her lucid throat and neck; 
Eddying in a gleam of dimples 
Up against her bloomy cheek. 

Bribing all the breezy water 
With rich warmth, the nymph to keep 
In a self-imprison'd plaisance, 
Tempting her from deep to deep. 

Till at last delirious passion 
Thrill'd the god to wild excess. 
And the fervour of a moment 
Made divinity confess; 

And he stood in all his glory! 
But so radiant, being near. 
That her eyes were frozen on him 
In a fascinated fear! 

All with orient splendour shining, — 
All with roseate birth aglow, 
Gleam'd the golden god before her, 
With his golden crescent bow. 

Soon the dazzled light subsided. 
And he seem'd a beauteous youth, 
Form'd to gain the maiden's murmurs, 
And to pledge the vows of truth. 

Ah! that thus he had continued! 
O, that such for her had been! 
Graceful with all godlike beauty, 
But so humanly serene! 

37 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

CheclvS, and moiith, and mellow ringlets. 
Bounteous as the mid-day beam; 
Pleading looks and wistful tremour, 
Tender as a maiden's dream! 

Palms that like a bird's throbb'd bosom 
Palpitate with eagerness. 
Lips, the bridals of the roses, 
Dewy sweet from the caress! 

Lips and limbs, and eyes and ringlets, 
Swaying, praying to one prayer, 
Like a lyre, swept by a spirit, 
In the still, enraptur'd air. 

Like a lyre in some far valley. 
Uttering ravishments divine! 
All its strings to viewless fingers 
Yearning, modulations fine! 

Yearning with melodious fervour! 
Like a beauteous maiden flower. 
When the young beloved, three paces 
Hovers from the bridal bower. 

Throbbing thro' the dawning stillness! 
As a heart within a breast. 
When the young beloved is stepping 
Eadiant to the nuptial nest. 

O for Daphne! gentle Daphne! 
Ever warmer by degrees 
Whispers full of hopes and visions. 
Throng her ears like honey bees! 

Never yet was lonely blossom 
Woo'd with such delicious voice! 
Never since hath mortal maiden 
Dwelt on such celestial choice! 

38 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

Love-sulTused she quivers, falters — 
Falters, sig^hs, but never speaks. 
All her ros^^ blood up-gushing"^ 
Overflows her ripe young cheeks. 

Blushing, sweet with virgin blushes, 
All her loveliness a-flame, 
Stands she in the orient waters, 
Stricken o'er with speechless shame! 

Ah! but lovelier, ever lovelier. 
As more deep the colour glows. 
And the honey-laden lily 
Changes to the fragrant rose. 

While the god with meek embraces. 
Whispering all his sacred charms, 
Softly folds her, gently holds her. 
In his white encircling arms! 

But, O Dian! veil not wholly 
Thy pale crescent from the morn! 
Vanish not, O virgin goddess. 
With that look of pallid scorn! 

Still thy pure protecting influence 
Shed from those fair watchful eyes! — 
Lo! her angry orb has vanished. 
And the bright sun thrones the skies! 

Voicelessly the forest Virgin 
Vanished! but one look she gave — 
Keen as Niobean arrow 
Thro' the maiden's heart it drave. 

Thus toward that throning bosom 
Where all earth is warmed, — each spot 
Nourished with autumnal blessings — 
Icy chill was Dax^hne caught. 
39 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

Icy chill! but swift revulsion 
All her gentler self renewed. 
Even as icy Winter quickens 
With bud-opening warmth imbued. 

Even as a torpid brooklet 
That to the night-gleaming moon 
Flashed in turn the frozen glances, — 
Melts upon the breast of noon. 

But no more — O never, never. 
Turns she to that bosom bright. 
Swiftly all her senses counsel — 
All her nerves are strung to flight. 

O'er the brows of radiant Pindus 
Eolls a shadow dark and cold. 
And a sound of lamentation 
Issues from its mournful fold. 

Voice of the far-sighted Muses! 
Cry of keen foreboding song! 
Every cleft of startled Tempe 
Tingles with it sharp and long. 

Over bourn and bosk and dingle. 
Over rivers, over rills, 
Kuns the sad subservient Echo 
Toward the dim blue distant hills! 

And another and another! 
'Tis a cry more wild than all; 
And the hills with muffled voices 
Answer * Daphne! * to the call. 

And another and another! 
*Tis a cry so wildly sweet, 
That her charmed heart turns rebel 
To the instinct of her feet; 
40 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

And she pauses for an instant; 
But his arms have scarcely slid 
Eound her waist in cestian girdles, 
And his low voluptuous lid 

Lifted pleading-, and the honey 
Of his mouth for her's athirst, 
Euby glistening, raised for moisture — 
Like a bud that waits to burst 

In the sweet espousing showers — 
And his tongue has scarce begun 
With its inarticulate burthen — 
And the clouds scarce show the sun 

As it pierces thro' a crevice 
Of the mass that closed it o'er. 
When again the horror flashes — 
And she turns to flight once more! 

And again o'er radiant Pindus 
Eolls the shadow dark and cold. 
And the sound of lamentation 
Issues from its sable fold! 

And again the light winds chide her 
As she darts from his embrace — 
And again the far-voiced echoes 
Speak their tidings of the chase. 

Loudly now as swiftly, swiftly. 

O'er the glimmering sands she speeds; 

Wildly now as in the furzes 

From the piercing spikes she bleeds. 

Deeply and with direful anguish 
As above each crimson drop, 
Passion checks the god Apollo, 
And love bids him weep and stop. — 
41 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

He above each drop of crimson 
Shadowing — like the laurel leaf 
That above himself will shadow, — 
Sheds a fadeless look of grief. 

Then with love's remorseful discord, 
With its own desire at war. 
Sighing turns, while dimly fleeting 
Daphne flies the chase afar. 

But all nature is against her! 
Pan with all his sylvan troop, 
Thro' the vista'd woodland valleys 
Blocks her course with cry and whoop! 

In the twilights of the thickets 
Trees bend down their gnarled boughs. 
Wild green leaves and low curved branches, 
Hold her hair and beat her brows. 

Many a brake of brushwood covert 
Where cold darkness slumbers mute, 
Slips a shrub to thwart her passage, 
Slides a hand to clutch her foot. 

Glens and glades of lushest verdure 
Toil her in their tawny mesh, 
Wilder-woofed ways and alleys 
Lock her struggling limbs in leash. 

Feathery grasses, flowery mosses. 
Knot themselves to make her trip; 
Sprays and stubborn sprigs outstretching. 
Put a bridle on her lip; — 

Many a winding lane betraj^s her, 
Many a sudden bosky shoot. 
And her knee makes many a stumble 
O'er some hidden damp old root, 

42 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

Whose quaint face peers green and dusky 
'Mong-st the matted growth of plants, 
While she rises wild and weltering, 
Speeding on with many pants. 

Tangles of the wild red strawberry- 
Spread their freckled trammels frail; 
In the pathway creeping brambles 
Catch her in their thorny trail. 

All the widely sweeping greensward 
Shifts and swims from knoll to knoll; 
Grey rough-fingered oak and elm wood 
Push her by from bole to bole. 

Groves of lemon, groves of citron, 
Tall high-foliaged plane and palm. 
Bloomy myrtle, light-blue olive. 
Wave her back with gusts of balm. 

Languid jasmine, scrambling briony, 
Walls of close-festooning braid. 
Fling themselves about her, mingling 
With her wafted locks, wajdaid. 

Twisting bindweed, honey'd woodbine, 
Cling to her, while, red and blue. 
On her rounded form, ripe berries 
Dash and die in gory dew. 

Running ivies dark and lingering. 
Round her light limbs drag and twine; 
Round her waist with languorous tendrils 
Reels and wreathes the juicy vine; — 

Reining in the flying creature 
With its arms about her mouth; 
Bursting all its mellowing bunches 
To seduce her husky drouth. 
43 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

Crowning' her with amorous clusters; 
Pouring' down her sloping back 
Fresh-born wines in glittering- rillets, 
Following her in crimson track. 

Buried, drenched in dewy foliage, 
Thus she glimmers from the dawn, 
Watched by every forest creature. 
Fleet-foot Oread, frolic Faun, 

Silver-sandalled Arethusa 
Not more swiftly fled the sands, 
Fled the plains and fled the sunlights. 
Fled the murmuring ocean strands. 

O, that now the earth would open! 
O, that now the shades would hide! 
O, that now the gods would shelter! 
Caverns lead and seas divide! 

Not more faint soft-lowing lo 
Panted in those starry eyes, 
When the sleepless midnight meadows 
Piteously implored the skies! 

Still her breathless flight she urges 
By the sanctuary stream, 
And the god with golden swiftness 
Follows like an eastern beam. 

Her the close bewildering greenery 
Darkens with Its duskiest green, — 
Him each little leaflet welcomes, 
Flushing with an orient sheen. 

Thus he nears, and now all Tempe 
Kings with his melodious cry. 
Avenues and blue expanses 
Beam in his large lustrous eye! 

44 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

All the branches start to music! 
As if from a secret spring 
Thousands of sweet bills are bubbling 
In the nest and on the wing. 

Gleams and shines the glassy river 
And rich valleys every one; 
But of all the throbbing beauty 
Brightest! singled by the Sun! 

Ivy round her glimmering ancle, 
Vine about her glowing brow, 
Never sure was bride so beauteous, 
Daphne, chosen nymph as thou! 

Thus he nears! and now she feels him 
Breathing hot on every limb; 
And he hears her own quick pantings — 
Ah! that they might be for him. 

O, that like the flower he tramples, 
Bending from his golden tijpad, 
Full of fair celestial ardours. 
She would bow her bridal head. 

O, that like the flower she presses, 
Nodding from her lily touch, 
Light as in the harmless breezes, 
She would know the god for such! 

See! the golden arms are round her — 
To the air she grasps and clings! 
See! his glowing arms have wound her — 
To the sky she shrieks and springs! 

See! the flushing chase of Tempe 
Trembles with Olympian air — 
See! green sprigs and buds are shooting 
From those white raised arms of prayer! 
45 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

In the earth her feet are rooting! — 
Breasts and limbs and lifted eyes. 
Hair and lips and stretching fingers. 
Fade away — and fadeless rise. 

And the god whose fervent rapture 
Clasps her, finds his close embrace 
Full of palpitating branches, 
And new leaves that bud apace, 

Eound his wonder-stricken forehead; — 
While in ebbing measures slow, 
Sounds of softly dying pulses, 
Pause and quiver, pause and go. 

Go, and come again, and flutter 
On the verge of life, — then flee! 
All the white ambrosial beauty 
Is a lustrous Laurel Tree! 

Still with the great panting love-chase 
All its running sap is warmed; — 
But from head to foot the virgin 
Is transfigured and transformed. 

Changed! — yet the green Dryad nature 
Is instinct with human ties, 
And above its anguish'd lover 
Breathes pathetic sympathies. 

Sympathies of love and sorrow; — 
Joy in her divine escape! 
Breathing through her bursting foliage 
Comfort to his bending shape. 

Vainly now the floating Naiads 
Seek to pierce the laurel maze. 
Nought but laurel meets their glances, 
Laurel glistens as they gaze. 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

Noug-ht but bright prophetic laurel! 
Laurel over eyes and brows. 
Over limbs and over bosom, 
Laurel leaves and laurel boughs! 

And in vain the listening Dryad 
Shells her hand against her ear! — 
All is silence — save the echo 
Travelling in the distance drear. 



LONDON BY LAMPLIGHT 

There stands a singer in the street, 
He has an audience motley and meet; 
Above him lowers the London night, 
And around the lamps are flaring bright. 

His minstrelsy may be unchaste — 
'Tis much unto that motley taste, 
And loud the laughter he provokes 
From those sad slaves of obscene jokes. 

But woe is manj'^ a passer by 
Who as he goes turns half an eye. 
To see the human form divine 
Thus Circe-wise changed into swine! 

Make up the sum of either sex 
That all our human hopes i)erplex. 
With those unhappy shapes that know 
The silent streets and pale cock-crow. 

And can I trace in such dull eyes 
Of fireside peace or country skies? 
And could those haggard cheeks presume 
To memories of a May-tide bloom? 
47 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

Those violated forms have been 
The pride of many a flowering green; 
And still the virgin bosom heaves 
With daisy meads and dewy leaves. 

But Stygian darkness reigns within, 
The river of death from the founts of sin; 
And one prophetic water rolls 
Its gas-lit surface for their souls. 

I will not hide the tragic sight — 

Those drown'd black locks, those dead lips white, 

Will rise from out the slimy flood, 

And cry before God's throne for blood! 

Those stiffened limbs, that swollen face, — 
Pollution's last and best embrace, 
Will call as such a picture can, 
For retribution upon man. 

Hark! how their feeble laughter rings. 
While still the ballad-monger sings, 
And flatters their unhappy breasts 
With poisonous words and pungent jests. 

O now would every daisy blush 
To see them 'mid that earthy crush! 
O dumb would be the evenliig thrush, 
And hoary look the hawthorn bush! 

The meadows of their infancy 

Would shrink from them, and every tree. 

And every little laughing spot. 

Would hush itself and know them not. 

Precursor to what black despairs 

Was that child's face which once was theirs! 

And O to what a world of guile 

Was herald that young angel smile! 

48 



POEMS WlilTTEN IN YOUTH 

That face which to a father's eye 
Was balm for all anxiety; 
That smile which to a mother's heart 
Went swifter than the swallow's dart! 

happy homes! that still they know 
At intervals, with what a woe 

Would ye look on them, dim and strange, 
Suffering worse than winter change! 

And yet could I transplant them there. 
To breathe again the innoceot air 
Of youth, and once more reconcile 
Their outcast looks with nature's smile; 

Could I but give them one clear day 
Of this delicious loving May, 
Release their souls from anguish dark, 
And stand them underneath the lark; — 

1 think that Nature would have power 
To graft again her blighted flower 
Upon the broken stem, renew 

Some portion of its early hue: — 

The heavy flood of tears unlock. 

More precious than the Scriptured rock; 

At least instil a happier mood. 

And bring them back to womanhood, 

Alas! how many lost ones claim 
This refuge from despair and shame! 
How many, longing for the light, 
Sink deeper in the ab^-^ss this night! 

O, crying sin! O, blushing thought! 
Not only unto those that wrought 
The misery and deadly blight; 
But those that outcast them this night! 
49 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

O, ag"ony of grief! for who 
Less dainty than his race, will do 
Such battle for their human right. 
As shall awake this startled night? 

Proclaim this evil human page, 
Will ever blot the Golden Age, 
That poets dream and saints invite, 
If it be unredeemed this night! 

This night of deep solemnity. 
And verdurous serenity, 
While over every fleecy field. 
The dews descend and odours, yield. 

This night of gleaming floods and falls. 
Of forest glooms and sylvan calls. 
Of starlight on the x>ebbly rills, 
And twilight on the circling hills. 

This night! when from the paths of men 

Grey error steams as from a fen; 

As o'er this flaring City wreathes 

The black cloud-vapour that it breathes! 

This night from which a morn will spring 

Blooming on its orient wing; 

A morn to roll with many more 

Its ghostly foam on the twilight shore. 

Morn! when the fate of all mankind 
Hangs poised in doubt, and man is blind. 
His duties of the day will seem 
The fact of life, and mine the dream. 

The destinies that bards have sung. 
Regeneration to the young; 
Reverberation of the truth. 
And virtuous culture unto youth! 
50 



rOEMS WEITTEN IN YOUTH 

Youth! in whose season let abound 

All flowers and fruits that strew the ground, 

Voluptuous joy where love consents, 

And health and pleasure pitch their tents: 

All rapture and all pure delight; 

A garden all unknown to blight. 

But never the unnatural night 

That throngs the shameless song this night! 



SONG 

Under boughs of breathing May, 
In the mild spring-time I lay, 
Lonely, for I had no love; 

And the sweet birds all sang for pity, 
Cuckoo, lark, and dove. 

Tell me, cuckoo, then I cried. 
Dare I woo and wed a bride? 
I, like thee, have no home-nest; 

And the twin notes thus tuned their ditty ,- 
' Love can answer best.' 

Nor, warm dove with tender coo. 
Have I thy soft voice to woo. 
Even were a damsel by; 

And the deep woodland crooned its ditty ,- 
' Love her first and try.' 

Nor have I, wild lark, thy wing. 
That from bluest heaven can bring 
Bliss, whatever fate befall; 

And the sky-lyrist trilled this ditty, — 
' Love will give thee all.' 

51 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

So it chanced while June was young, 
Wooing well with fervent song, 
I had won a damsel coj^ 

And the sweet birds that sang for pity, 
Jubileed for joy. 



PASTORALS 



How sweet on sunny afternoons, 
For those who journey light and well. 
To loiter up a hilly rise 
Which hides the prospect far beyond, 
And fancy all the landscape lying 
Beautiful and still. 

Beneath a sky of summer blue, 
Whose rounded cloudlets, folded soft. 
Gaze on the scene which we a-wait 
And picture from their peacefulness; 
So calmly to the earth inclining 

Float those loving shapes! 

Like airy brides, each singling out 
A spot to love and bless with love. 
Their creamy bosoms glowing warm. 
Till distance weds them to the hills. 
And with its latest gleam the river 
Sinks in their embrace. 

And silverly the river runs. 
And many a graceful wind he makes, 
By fields where feed the happy flocks. 
And hedge-rows hushing pleasant lanes, 
The charms of English home reflected 
In his shining eye. 
52 



POEMS WKITTEN IN YOUTH 

Ancestral oak, broad-foliag-ed elm, 
Eich meadows sunned and starred with flowers, 
The cottage breathing tender smoke 
Against the brooding golden air, 
With glimpses of a stately mansion 
On a woodland sward. 

And circling round as with a ring, 
The distance sjireading amber haze, 
Enclosing hills and jjastures sweet; 
A depth of soft and mellow light 
Which fills the heart with sudden yearning 
Aimless and serene! 

No disenchantment follows here. 
For nature's inspiration moves 
The dream which she herself fulfils; 
And he whose heart like valley warmth. 
Steams up with joy at scenes like this 
Shall never be forlorn. 

And O for any human soul 
The rapture of a wide survey — 
A valley SAveeping to the West 
With all its wealth of loveliness. 
Is more than recompense for days 
That taught us to endure. 



II 



Yon upland slope which hides the sun 
Ascending from his eastern deeps, 
And now against the hues of dawn. 
One level line of tillage rears; 
The furrowed brow of toil and time; 
To many it is but a sweep of land! 

53 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

To others 'tis an Autumn trust, 
But unto me a mystery; — 
An influence strange and swift as dreams; 
A whispering of old romance; 
A temple naked to the clouds; 
Or one of nature's bosoms fresh revealed, 

Heaving with adoration! there 
The work of husbandry is done, 
And daily bread is daily earned; 
Nor seems there ought to indicate 
The springs which move in me such thoughts, 
But from my soul a spirit calls them up. 

All day into the open sky, 
All night to the eternal stars, 
For ever both at morn and eve 
When mellow distances draw near, 
And shadows lengthen in the dusk, 
Athwart the heavens it rolls its glimmering line! 

When twilight from the dream-hued West 
Sighs hush! and all the land is still; 
When from the lush empurpling East, 
The twilight of the crowing cock, 
Peers on the drowsy village roofs, 
Athwart the heavens that glimmering line is seen. 

And now beneath the rising sun. 
Whose shining chariot overpeers, 
The irradiate ridge, while fetlock deep 
In the rich soil his coursers plunge — 
How grand in robes of light it looks! 
How glorious with rare suggestive grace! 

The ploughman mounting up the height 
Becomes a glowing' shape, as though 
'Twere young Triptolemus, plough in hand, 
While Ceres in her amber scarf, 
With gentle love directs him how 
To wed the willing earth and hope for fruits! 

54 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

The furrows running up, are fraught 
With meanings; there the goddess walks, 
While Proserpine is young, and there — 
'Mid the late autumn sheaves, her voice 
Sobbing and choked with dumb despair — 
The nights will hear her wailing for her child! 

Whatever dim tradition tells. 
Whatever history may reveal, 
Or fancy, from her starry brows, 
Of light or dreamful lustre shed, 
Could not at this sweet time increase 
The quiet consecration of the spot. 

Blest with the sweat of labour, blest 
With the young sun's first vigorous beams, 
Village hope and harvest prayer, — 
The heart that throbs beneath it, holds 
A bliss so perfect in itself 
Men's thoughts must borrow rather than bestow. 



Ill 



Now standing on this hedgeside path. 
Up which the evening winds are blowing 
Wildly from the lingering lines 

Of sunset o'er the hills; 
Unaided by one motive thought. 
My spirit with a strange impulsion 
Eises, like a fledgling. 
Whose wings are not mature, but still 
Supported by its strong desire, 
Beats up its native air and leaves 

The tender mother's nest. 



5^ 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

Great music under heaven is made. 
And in the track of rushing darkness 
Comes the solemn shape of night, 

y\nd broods above tlie earth. 
A thing of Nature am I now, 
Abroad, witliout a sense or feeling 
Born not of her bosom ; 
Content with all her truths and fates; 
Ev'n as yon strip of grass that bows 
Above, the new-born violet bloom. 

And sings with wood and field. 



IV 

Lo, as a tree, whose wintry twigs 
Drink in the sun with fibrous joy, 
And down into its dampest roots 
Thrills quickened with the draught of life, 
I wake unto the da»wn, and leave my griefs to drowse. 

I rise and drink the fresh sweet air: 
Each draught a future bud of Spring; 
Each glance of blue a birth of green; 
I will not mimic yonder oak 
That dallies with dead leaves ev'n while the primrose peegs. 

But full of these warm-whispering beams, 
Like Memnon in his mother's eye, — 
Aurora! when the statue stone 
Moaned soft to her pathetic touch, — 
My soul shall own its parent in the founts of day! 

And ever in the recurring light. 
True to the primal joy of dawn. 
Forget its barren griefs; and aye 
Like aspens in the faintest breeze. 
Turn all its silver sides and tremble into song. 

56 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 



Now from the meadow floods the wild duck clamours, 
Now the wood pigeon wings a rapid flight, 
Now the homeward rookery follows up its vanguard. 
And the valley mists are curling up the hills. 

Three short songs gives the clear-voiced throstle, 
Sweetening the twilight ere he fills the nest; 
While the little bird upon the leafless branches 
Tweets to its mate a tiny loving note. 

Deeper the stillness hangs on every motion; 
Calmer the silence follows every call; 
Now all is quiet save the roosting pheasant, 
The bell-wether tinkle and the watch-dog's bark. 

Softly shine the lights from the silent kindling homestead. 
Stars of the hearth to the shepherd in the fold; 
Springs of desire to the traveller on the roadway; 
Ever breathing incense to the ever-blessing sky! 



VI 



How barren would this A'alley be. 
Without the golden orb that gazes 
On it, broadening to hues 
Of rose, and spreading wings of amber; 
Blessing it before it falls asleep. 

How barren would this valley be, 
Without the human lives now beating 
In it, or the throbbing hearts 
Far distant, who their flower of childhood 
Cherish here, and water it with tears! 
57 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

How barren should I be, were I 
Without above that loving splendour, 
Shedding- light and warmth! without 
Some kindred natures of my kind 
To joy in me, or yearn towards me now! 



VII 

Summer glows warm on the meadows, and speedwell, and 

gold-cups, and daisies, 
Darken 'mid deepening masses of sorrel, and shadowy grasses 
Show the ripe hue to the farmer, and summon the scythe and 

the hay-makers 
Down from the village; and now, even now, the air smells of 

the mowing, 
And the sharp song of the scythe whistles daily; from dawn, 

till the gloaming 
Wears its cool star; sweet and welcome to all flaming faces 

afield now; 
Heavily weighs the hot season, and drowses the darkening 

foliage, 
Drooping with languor; the white cloud floats, but sails not, 

for windless 
Heaven's blue tents it; no lark singing up in its fleecy white 

valleys ; 
Up in its fairy white valleys, once feathered with minstrels; 

melodious 
With the invisible joy that wakes dawn o'er the green fields 

of England. 
Summer glows warm on the meadows; then come, let us roam 

thro' them gaily. 
Heedless of heat, and the hot-kissing sun, and the fear of dark 

freckles. 
Never one kiss will he give on a neck, or a lily-white forehead. 
Chin, hand, or bosom uncovered, all panting, to take the chance 

coolness, — 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

But full sure the fiery pressure leaves seal of espousal. 

Heed him not; come, tho' he kiss till the soft little upper-lip 

loses 
Half its pure whiteness; just speck'd where the curve of the 

rosy mouth reddens. 

Come, let him kiss, let him kiss, and his kisses shall make thee 

the sweeter. 
Thou art no nun, veiled and vowed; doomed to nourish a 

withering pallor! 
City exotics beside thee would show like bleached linen at 

mid-day, 
Hung upon hedges of eglantine! Thou in the freedom of 

nature, 
Full of her beauty and wisdom, gentleness, joj^ance, and kind- 
ness! 
Come, and like bees will we gather the rich golden honey of 

noontide ; 
Deep in the sweet summer meadows, border'd by hillside and 

river; 
Lined with long trenches half-hidden, where, smell of white 

meadow-sweet, sweetest 
Blissfully hovers — O sweetest! but pluck it not! even in the 

tenderest 
Grasp it will lose breath and wither; like many, not made for 

a posy. 

See, the sun slopes down to the meadows, where all the flowers 

are falling! 
Falling unhymned; for the nightingale scarce ever charms 

the long twilight: 
Mute with the cares of the nest; only known by a 'chuck, 

chuck,' and dovelike 
Call of content, but the finch and the linnet and blackcap pipe 

loudly. 
Hound on the western hill-side warbles the rich-billed oixzel; 
And the shrill throstle is filling the tangled thickening copses; 
Singing o'er hyacinths hid, and most honey'd of flowei-s, white 

field-rose. 

59 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

Joy thus to revel all day in the grass of our own beloved 
country; 

Eevel all day, till the lark mounts at eve w^ith his sweet ' tirra- 
lirra ': 

Trilling- delightfully. See, on the river the slow-rlppled 
surface 

Shining; the slow ripple broadens in circles; the bright sur- 
face smoothens: 

Now it is flat as the leaves of the yet unseen water-lily. 

There dart the lives of a day, ever-varying tactics fantastic. 

There, by the wet-mirrored osiers, the emerald wing of the 
kingfisher 

Flashes, the fish in his beak! there the dab-chick dived, and 
the motion 

Lazily undulates all thro' the tall standing army of rushes. 

Joy thus to revel all day, till the twilight turns us homeward! 
Till all the lingering deep-blooming splendour of sunset is 

over. 
And the one star shines mildly in mellowing hues, like a spirit 
Sent to assure us that light neve^ dieth, tho' day is now buried. 
Saying: to-morrow, to-morrow, few hours intervening, that 

interval 
Tuned by the woodlark in heaven, to-morrow my semblance, 

far eastward. 
Heralds the day 'tis my mission eternal to seal and to 

prophecy. 

Come then, and homeward ; passing down the close path of the 

meadows. 
Home, like the bees stored with sweetness; each with a lark 

in the bosom, 
Trilling for ever, and oh! will yon lark ever cease to sing up 

there? 



60 



POEMS WEITTEN IN YOUTH 

SONG 

Spring 

When buds of palm do burst and spread 

Their downy feathers in the lane, 
And orchard blossoms, white and red, 

Breathe Spring- delight for Autumn gain; 

And the skylark shakes his wings in the rain; 

O then is the season to look for a bride! 

Choose her warily, woo her unseen; 
For the choicest maids are those that hide 

Like dewy violets under the green. 

SONG 

Autumn 

When nuts behind the hazel-leaf 

Are brown as the squirrel that hunts them free, 
And the fields are rich with the sun-burnt sheaf, 

'Mid the blue cornflower and the yellowing tree; 

And the farmer glows and beams in his glee; 

O then is the season to wed thee a bride! 

Ere the garners are filled and the ale-cups foam; 
For a smiling hostess is the pride 

And flower of every Harvest Home. 



61 



POEMS WEITTEN IN YOUTH 



LOVE IN THE VALLEY 

Under yonder beech-tree standing' on the green-sward. 

Crouched with her arms behind her little head, 
IIf;r knees folded up, and her tresses on her bosom, 

Lies my young love sleeping in the shade. 
Had I the heart to slide one arm beneath her, 

Press her dreaming lips as her waist I folded slow. 
Waking on the instant she could not but embrace me — 

Ah! would she hold me, and never let me go? 

Shy as the squirrel, and wayward as the swallow; 

Swift as the swallow when athwart the western flood 
Circleting the surface he meets his mirrored winglets, — 

Is that dear one in her maiden bud. 
Shy as the squirrel whose nest is in the pine-tops; 

Gentle — ah! that she were jealous as the dove! 
Full of all the wildness of the woodland creatures, 

Happy in herself is the maiden that I love! 

What can have taught her distrust of all I tell her? 

Can she truly doubt me when looking on my brows? 
Nature never teaches distrust of tender love-tales. 

What can have taught her distrust of all my vows? 
No, she does not doubt me! on a dewy eve-tide 

Whispering together beneath the listening moon, 
I pray'd till her cheek flush'd, implored till she faltered — 

Fluttered to my bosom — ah! to fly away so soon! 

When her mother tends her before the laughing mirror. 

Tying up her laces, looping up her hair. 
Often she thinks — were this wild thing wedded, 

I should have more love, and much less care. 
When her mother tends her before the bashful mirror. 

Loosening her laces, combing down her curls. 
Often she thinks — were this wild thing wedded, 

I should lose but one for so many boys and girls. 
63 



POEMS WllITTEN IN YOUTH 

Clambering roses peep into lier chamber, 

Jasmine and woodbine breathe sweet, sweet, 
Wliite-necked swallows twittering of summer, 

Fill her with balm and nested peace from head to feet. 
Ah! will the rose-bough see her lying lonely. 

When the petals fall and fierce bloom is on the leaves? 
Will the Autumn garners see her still ungathered. 

When the fickle swallows forsake the weeping eaves? 

Comes a sudden question — should a strange hand pluck her! 

Oh! what an anguish smites me at the thought. 
Should some idle lordling bribe her mind with jewels! — 

Can such beauty ever thus be bought? 
Sometimes the huntsmen prancing down the valley 

Eye the village lasses, full of sprightly mirth; 
They see as I see, mine is the fairest! 

W^ould she were older and could read my worth! 

Are there not sweet maidens if she still deny me? 

Show the bridal heavens but one bright star? 
Wherefore thus then do I chase a shadow. 

Clattering one note like a brown eve-jar? 
So 1 rhyme and reason till she darts before me — 

Thro' the milky meadows from flower to flower she flies, 
Sunning her sweet palms to shade her dazzled eyelids 

From the golden love that looks too eager in her eyes. 

\Yhen at dawn she wakens, and her fair face gazes 

Out on the weather thro' the window-panes. 
Beauteous she looks! like a Avhite water-lily 

Biirsting out of bud on the rippled river plains. 
When from bed she rises clothed from neck to ankle 

In her long nightgown, sweet as boughs of May, 
Beauteous she looks! like a tall garden lily 

Piire from the night and perfect for the day! 

Happy, ha]ipy time, \\hen the grey star twinkles 
Over the fields all fresh with bloomy dew; 

W^hen the cold-cheeked dawn grows ruddy up the twilight, 
And the gold sun wakes, and weds her in the blue. 
63 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

Then when my darling: tempts the early breezes, 
She the only star that dies not with the dark! 

Powerless to speak all the ardour of my passion 
I catch her little hand as we listen to the lark. 

Shall the birds in vain then valentine their sweethearts? 

Season after season tell a fruitless tale; 
Will not the virgin listen to their voices? 

Take the honeyed meaning, wear the bridal veil. 
Fears she frosts of winter, fears she the bare branches? 

Waits she the garlands of spring for her dower? 
Is she a nightingale that will not be nested 

Till the April woodland has built her bridal bower? 

Then come merry April with all thy birds and beauties! 

With thy crescent brows and thy flowery, showery glee; 
With thy budding leafage and fresh green pastures; 

And may thy lustrous crescent grow a honeymoon for me! 
Come merry month of the cuckoo and the violet! 

Come weeping Loveliness in all thy blue delight! 
Lo! the nest is ready, let me not languish longer! 

Bring her to my arms on the first May night. 



BEAUTY EOHTEAUT 

(From Moricke) 

What is the name of King ilingang's daughter? 

Rohtraut, Beauty Rohtraut! 
And what does she do the livelong day, 
Since she dare not knit and spin alway? 
O hunting and fishing is ever her play! 
And, heigh! that her huntsman I might be! 
I'd hunt and fish right raerrily! 
Be silent, heart! 

G4 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTU 

Aud it chanced that, after this some time, 

Kohtraut, Beauty Rohtraut, 
The boy in the Castle has gained access. 
And a horse he has got and a huntsman's dress, 
To hunt and to fish with the merrj' Princess; 
And, O! that a king's son I might be! 
Beauty Eohtraut I love so tenderly. 
Hush! hush! my heart. 

Under a grey old oak they sat. 
Beauty, Beauty Rohtraut! 
She laughs: ' Why look you so slyly at me? 
If you have heart enough, come, kiss me. 
Cried the breathless boy, ' kiss thee? ' 
But he thinks, kind fortune has favoured my youth; 
And thrice he has kissed Beauty Rohtraut's mouth. 
Down! down! mad heart. 

Then slowly and silently they rode home, — 

Rohtraut, Beauty Rohtraut! 
The boy was lost in his delight: 
' And, wert thou Empress this very night, 
I would not heed or feel the blight; 
Ye thousand leaves of the wild wood wist 
How Beauty Rohtraut's mouth I kiss'd. 
Hush! hush! wild heart.' 



TO A SKYLARK 

skylark! I see thee and call thee joy! 

Thy wings bear thee up to the breast of the dawn; 

1 see thee no more, but thy song is still 
The tongue of the heavens to me! 

Thus are the days when I was a boy; 

Sweet while I lived in them, dear now they're gone: 

I feel them no longer, but still, O still 

They tell of the heavens to me. 

65 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 



SORROWS AND JOYS 

Bury thy sorrows, and they shall rise 

As souls to the immortal skies, 

And there look down like mothers' eyes. 

But let thy joys be fresh as flowers, 
That suck the honey of the showers, 
And bloom alike on huts and towers. 

So shall thy days be sweet and bright; 
Solemn and sweet thy starry night, 
Conscious of love each change of light. 

The stars will watch the flowers asleep, 
The flowers will feel the soft stars weep. 
And both will mix sensations deep. 

With these below, with those above, 
Sits evermore the brooding dove, 
Uniting both in bonds of love. 

For both by nature are akin; 
Sorrow, the ashen fruit of sin, 
And joy, the juice of life within. 

Children of earth are these; and those 
The spirits of divine repose — 
Death radiant o'er all human woes. 

O, think what then had been thy doom, 

If homeless and without a tomb, 

They had been left to haunt the gloom! 

O, think again what now they are — 
Motherly love, tho' dim and far, 
Imaged in every lustrous star. 

6G 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

For they, in their salvation, know 

No vestige of their former woe, 

While thro' them all the heavens do flow. 

Thus art thou wedded to the skies. 
And watched by ever-loving eyes. 
And warned by yearning sympathies. 



SONG 

The Flower unfolds its dawning cup. 
And the young sun drinks the star-dews up, 
At eve it droops with the bliss of day, 
And dreams in the midnight far away. 

So am I in thy sole, sweet glance. 
Pressed with a weight of utterance; 
Lovingly all my leaves unfold, 
And gleam to the beams of thirsty gold. 

At eve I droop, for then the swell 
Of feeling falters forth farewell; — 
At midnight I am dreaming deep. 
Of what has been, in blissful sleep. 

When — ah! when will love's own light 

Wed me alil^e thro' day and night. 

When will the stars with their linking charms 

Wake us in each other's arms? 



67 



POEMS WEITTEN IN YOUTH 



SONG 

Thou to me art such a spring, 
As the Arab seeks at eve, 
Thirsty from the shining sands; 
There to bathe his face and hands. 
While the sun is talcing leave, 
And dewy sleep is a delicious thing. 

Thou to me art such a dream. 
As he dreams upon the grass. 
While the bubbling coolness near, 
Makes sweet music in his ear; 
And the stars that slowly pass. 
In solitary grandeur o'er him gleam. 

Thou to me art such a dawn. 
As the dawn, whose ruddy kiss 
Wakes him to his darling steed; 
And again the desert speed. 
And again the desert bliss. 
Lightens thro' his veins, and he is gone! 



ANTIGONE 

The buried voice besj)ake Antigone. 

* O Sister! couldst thou know as thou wilt know, 
The bliss above, the reverence below. 
Enkindled by thy sacrifice for me; 
Thou wouldst at once with holy ecstasy, 
Give thy warm limbs into the yearning earth. 
Sleep, Sister! for Elysium's dawning birth, — 
68 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

And faith will fill thee with what is to be! 
Sleep, for the Gods are watching over thee! 
Thy dream will steer thee to perform their will, 
As silently their influence they instil. 
O Sister! in the sweetness of thy prime, 
Thy hand has plucked the bitter flower of death; 
But this will dower thee with Elysian breath, 
That fade into a never-fading- clime. 
Dear to the Gods are those that do like thee 
A solemn duty! for the tyranny 
Of kings is feeble to the soul that dares 
Defy them to fulfil its sacred cares: 
And weak against a mighty will are men. 
O, Torch between two brothers! in whose gleam 
Our slaughtered House doth shine as one again, 
Tho' severed by the sword; now may thy dream 
Kindle desire in thee for us, and thou, 
Forgetting not thy lover and his vow, 
Leaving no hiunan memory forgot, 
Shalt cross, not unattended, the dark stream 
Which runs by thee in sleep and ripples not. 
The large stars glitter thro' the anxious night, 
And the deep sky broods low to look at thee: 
The air is hush'd and dark o'er land and sea, 
And all is waiting for the morrow light: 
So do thy kindred spirits wait for thee. 
O Sister! soft as on the downward rill. 
Will those first daybeams from the distant hill 
Fall on the smoothness of thy placid brow, 
Like this calm sweetness breathing thro' me now: 
And when the fated sounds shall wake thine eyes, 
Wilt thou, confiding in the supreme will, 
In all thy maiden steadfastness arise. 
Firm to obey and earnest to fulfil; 
Eemembering the night thou didst not sleep. 
And this same brooding sky beheld thee creep. 
Defiant of unnatural decree, 
To where I lay upon the outcast land; 
Before the iron gates upon the plain ; 
69 



POEMS WKITTEN IN YOUTH 

A wretched, j^raveless ghost, whose wailing chill, 
Came to thy darkened door imploring thee; 
Yearning for burial like my brother slain; — 
And all was dared for love and piety! 
This thought will nerve again thy virgin hand 
To serve its purpose and its destiny.' 

She woke, they led her forth, and all was still. 



Swathed round in mist and crown'd with cloud, 
O Mountain! hid from peak to base — 
Caught up into the heavens and clasped 
In white ethereal arms that make 
Thy mystery of size sublime! 
What eye or thought can measure now 
Thy grand dilating loftiness! 
What giant crest dispute with thee 
Supremacy of air and sky! 
What fabled height with thee compare! 
Not those vine-terraced hills that seethe 
The lava in their fiery cusps; 
Nor that high-climbing robe of snow, 
Whose summits touch the morning star. 
And breathe the thinnest air of life; 
Nor crocus-crouching Ida, warm 
With Juno's latest nuptial lure; 
Nor Tenedos whose dreamy eye 
Still looks upon beleaguered Troy; 
Nor j'et Olympus crown'd with gods, 
Can boast a majesty like thine, 
O Mountain! hid from peak to base, 
And image of the awful power 
With which the secret of all things 
That stoops from heaven to garment earth. 
Can speak to any human soul. 
When once the earthly limits lose 
Their pointed heights and sharpened lines, 
And measureless immensity 
Is palpable to sense and sight. 
70 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 



SONG 

No, no, the falling blossom is no sign 

Of loveliness destroy'd and sorrow mute; 

The blossom sheds its loveliness divine; — 
Its mission is to prophecy the fruit. 

Nor is the day of love for ever dead, 

When young enchantment and romance are gone; 
The veil is drawn, but all the future dread 

Is lightened by the finger of the dawn. 

Love moves with life along a darker way. 

They cast a shadow and they call it death: 

But rich is the fulfilment of their day; 

The purer passion and the firmer faith. 



THE TWO BLACKBIRDS 

A Blackbird in a wicker cage, 

That hung and swung 'mid fruits and flowers, 
Had learnt the song-charm, to assuage 

The drearness of its wingless hours. 

And ever when the song was heard, 

From trees that shade the grassy plot 

Warbled another glossj-^ bird. 

Whose mate not long ago was shot. 

Strange anguish in that creature's breast, 

Unwept like human grief, unsaid, 
Has quickened in its lonely nest 

A living impulse from the dead. 

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POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

Not to console its own wild smart, — 
But with a kindling instinct strong, 

The novel feeling of its heart 

Beats for the captive bird of song. 

And when those mellow notes are still. 
It hops from off its choral perch, 

O'er path and sward, with busy bill. 

All grateful gifts to peck and search. 

Store of ouzel dainties choice 

To those white swinging bars it brings; 
And with a low consoling voice, 

It talks between its fluttering wings. 

Deeply in their bitter grief 

Those sufferers reciprocate, 
The one sings for its woodland life. 

The other for its murdered mate. 

But deeper doth the secret prove. 
Uniting those sad creatures so; 

Humanity's great link of love. 

The common sympathy of woe. 

Well divined from day to day. 

Is the swift speech between them twain; 
For when the bird is scared away, 

The captive bursts to song again. 

Yet daily with its flattering voice. 

Talking amid its fluttering wings, 

Store of ouzel dainties choice. 

With busy bill the lioor bird brings. 

And shall I say, till weak with age, 

Down from its drowsy branch it drops. 

It will not leave that captive cage. 

Nor cease those busy searching hops? 

73 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

Ah, no! the moral will not strain; 

Another sense will make it range, 
Another mate will soothe its pain, 

Another season work a change. 

But thro' the live-long summer, tried, 
A pure devotion we may see; 

The ebb and flow of Nature's tide; 
A self-forgetful sympathy. 



JULY 



Blue July, bright July, 

Month of storms and gorgeous blue; 
Violet lightnings o'er thy sky, 

Heavy falls of drenching dew; 
Summer crown! o'er glen and glade 
Shrinking hyacinths in their shade; 
I welcome thee with all thy pride, 
I love thee like an Eastern bride. 

Though all the singing days are done 

As in those climes that clasp the sun; 

Though the cuckoo in his throat. 

Leaves to the dove his last twin note; 
Come to me with thy lustrous eye, 
Golden-dawning oriently. 
Come with all thy shining blooms. 
Thy rich red rose and rolling glooms. 

Though the cuckoo doth but sing ' cuk, cuk,' 
And the dove alone doth coo; 

Though the cushat spins her coo-r-roo, r-r-roo — 
To the cuckoo's halting ' cuk.' 
73 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 



II 

Sweet July, warm July! 

Month when mosses near the stream. 
Soft green mosses thick and shy, 

Are a rapture and a dream. 
Summer Queen! whose foot the fern 
Fades beneath while chestnuts burn; 
I welcome thee with thy fierce love, 
Gloom below and gleam above. 

Though all the forest trees hang dumb, 

With dense leafiness o'ercome; 

Though the nightingale and thrush, 

Pip)e not from the bough or bush; 
Come to me with thy lustrous eye, 
Azure-melting westerly, 
The raptures of thy face unfold, 
And welcome in thy robes of gold! 

Though the nightingale broods — 'sweet-chuck-sweet'- 
And the ouzel flutes so chill, 

Tho* the throstle gives but one shrilly trill 
To the nightingale's ' sweet-sweet.' 



SONG 

I would I were the drop of rain 

That falls into the dancing rill, 

For I should seek the river then. 

And roll below the wooded hill, 
Until I reached the sea. 

And O, to be the river swift 

That wrestles with the wilful tide. 
And fling the briny weeds aside 
That o'er the foamy billows drift. 
Until I came to thee! 
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POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

I would that after weary strife, 

And storm beneath the piping wind, 

The current of my true fresh life. 

Might come unniingled, unimbrined. 
To where thou tioatest free. 

Might find thee in some amber clime, 
Where sunlight dazzles on the sail, 
And dreaming of our plighted vale. 

Might seal the dream, and bless the time, 
With maiden kisses three. 



SONG 

Come to me in any shape! 

As a victor crown'd with vine. 
In thy curls the clustering grape, — 

Or a vanquished slave: 
'Tis thy coming that I crave, 

And thy folding serpent twine, 
Close and dumb; 
Ne'er from that would I escape; 
Come to me in any shape! 
Only come! 

Only come, and in my breast 

Hide thy shame or show thy pride; 
In my bosom be caressed. 

Never more to part; 
Come into my yearning heart; 
I, the serpent, golden-eyed. 
Twine round thee; 
Twine thee with no venomed test. 
Absence makes the venomed nest; 
Come to me! 

75 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

Come, to me, my lover, come! 

Violets on the. tender stem 
Die and wither in their bloom, 

Under dewy grass; 
Come, my lover, or, alas! 

I shall die, shall die like them, 
Frail and lone; 
Come to me, my lover, come! 
Let thy bosom be my tomb: 
Come, my own! 



THE SHIPWEECK OF IDOMENEUS 

Swept from his fleet upon that fatal night 
When great Poseidon's sudden-veering wrath 
Scattered the happy homeward-floating Greeks 
Like foam-flakes ofl' the waves, the King of Crete 
Held lofty commune with the dark Sea-god. 
His brows were crowned with victory, his cheeks 
Were flushed with triumph, but the mighty joy 
Of Troy's destruction and his own great deeds 
Passed, for the thoughts of home were dearer now, 
And sweet the memory of wife and child, 
And w^eary now the ten long, foreign years, 
And terrible the doubt of short delay — 
More terrible, O Gods! he cried, but stopped; 
Then raised his voice upon the storm and prayed. 
O thou, if injured, injured not by me, 
Poseidon! whom sea-deities obey 
And mortals worship, hear me! for indeed 
It was our oath to aid the cause of Greece, 
Not unespoused by gods, and most of all 
By thee, if gentle currents, havens calm, 
Fair winds and prosperous voyage, and the Shape 
Impersonate in many a perilous hour, 
Both in the stately councils of the Kings, 
76 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

And when the husky battle murmured thick, 
May testify of services performed! 
But now the seas are haggard with thy wrath, 
Thy breath is tempest! never at the shores 
Of hostile Ilium did thj-^ stormful brows 
Betray such fierce magnificence! not even 
On that wild day when mad with torch and glare, 
The frantic crowds with eyes like starving wolves, 
Burst from their ports impregnable, a stream 
Of headlong fury toward the hissing deep; 
Where then full-armed I stood in guard, compact 
Beside thee, and alone, with brand and spear, 
We held at bay the swarming brood, and poured 
Blood of choice warriors on the foot-ploughed sands! 
Thou, meantime, dark with conflict, as a cloud 
That thickens in the bosom of the West 
Over quenched sunset, circled round with flame. 
Huge as a billow running from the winds 
Long distances, till with black shipwreck swoln, 
It flings its angry mane about the sky. 
And like that billow heaving ere it burst; 
And like that cloud urged by impulsive storm 
With charge of thunder, lightning, and the drench 
Of torrents, thou in all thy majesty 
Of mightiness didst fall upon the war! 
Remember that great moment! Nor forget 
The aid I gave thee; how my ready spear 
Flew swiftly seconding thy mortal stroke. 
Where'er the press was hottest; never slacked 
My arm its duty, nor mine eye its aim. 
Though terriblj' they compassed us, and stood 
Thick as an Autumn forest, whose brown hair, 
Lustrous with sunlight, by the sti"ll increase 
Of heat to glowing heat conceives like zeal 
Of radiam^e, till at the pitch of noon 
'Tis seized with conflagration and distends 
Horridly over leagues of doom'd domain. 
Mingling the screams of birds, the cries of brutes, 
The wail of creatures in the covert pent, 
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POEMS WEITTEN IN YOUTH 

Howls, yells, and shrieks of agony, the hiss 
Of seething sap, and crash of falling boughs 
Together in its dull voracious roar. 

So closely and so fearfully they throng'd. 
Savage with phantasies of victory, 
A sea of dusky shapes; for day had passed 
And night fell on their darkened faces, red 
With fight and torchflare; shrill the resonant air 
With eager shouts, and hoarse with angry groans; 
While over all the dense and sullen boom. 
The din and murmur of the myriads. 
Rolled with its awful intervals, as though 
The battle breathed, or as against the shore 
Waves gather back to heave themselves anew. 
That night sleep dropped not from the dreary skies. 
Nor could the prowess of our chiefs oppose 
That sea of raging men. But what were they? 
Or what is man opposed to thee? His hopes 
Are wrecks, himself the drowning, drifting weed 
That wanders on thy waters; such as I 
Who see the scattered remnants of my fleet, 
Eemembering the day when first he sailed, 
Each glad ship shining like the morning star 
With promise for the world. Oh! such as I 
Thus darkly drifting on the drowning waves. 
O God of waters! 'tis a dreadful thing 
To suffer for an evil unrevealed; 
Dreadful it is to hear the perishing cry 
Of those we love; the silence that succeeds 
How dreadful! Still my trust is fixed on thee 
For those that still remain and for myself. 
And if I hear thy swift foam-snorting steeds 
Drawing thy dusky chariot, as in 
The pauses of the wind I seem to hear. 
Deaf thou art not to my entreating prayer! ^ 
Haste then to give us help, for closelj' now 
Crete whispers in my ears, and all my blood 
Runs keen and warm for home, and I have yearning, 
Such yearning as I never felt before, 

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POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

To see again my wife, my little son, 
My Queen, my pretty nursling of five years, 
The darling of my hopes, our dearest pledge 
Of marriage, and our brightest prize of love, 
Whose parting crj^ rings clearest in my heart. 

lay this horror, much-oflf ended God! 
And making all as fair and firm as when 
We trusted to thy mighty depths of old, — 

1 vow to sacrifice the first whom Zeus 

Shall prompt to hail us from the white seashore 
And welcome our return to royal Crete, 
An offering, Poseidon, unto thee! 

Amid the din of elemental strife, 
No voice may pierce but Deity supreme: 
And Deity supreme alone can hear. 
Above the hurricane's discordant shrieks, 
The cry of agonized humanity. 

Not unappeased was He who smites the waves, 
When to his stormy ears the warrior's vow 
Entered, and from his foamy pinnacle 
Tumultuous, he beheld the prostrate form, 
And knew the mighty heart. Awhile he gazed, 
As doubtful of his purpose, and the storm, 
Conscious of that divine debate, withheld 
Its fierce emotion, in the luminous gloom 
Of those so dark irradiating eyes! 
Beneath whose wavering lustre shone revealed 
The tumult of the purpling deeps, and all 
The throbbing of the tempest, as it paused, 
Slowly subsiding, seeming to await 
The sudden signal, as a faithful hound 
Pants with the forepaws stretched before its nose. 
Athwart the greensward, after an eager chase; 
Its hot tongue thrust to cool, its foamy jaws 
Open to let the swift breath come and go, 
Its quick interrogating eyes fixed keen 
Upon the huntsman's countenance, and ever 
79 



POEMS WEITTEN IN YOUTH 

Lashing its sharp impatient tail with haste: 
Prompt at the slightest sign to scour away, 
And hang itself afresh by the bleeding fangs, 
Upon the neck of some death-singled stag. 
Whose royal antlers, eyes, and stumbling knees, 
Will supplicate the gods in mute despair. 
This time not mute, nor yet in vain this time! 
For still the burden of the earnest voice 
And all the vivid glories it revoked. 
Sank in the god, with that absorbed suspense 
Felt only by the Olympians, whose minds 
Unbounded like our mortal brain, perceive 
All things complete, the end, the aim of all; 
To whom the crown and consequence of deeds 
Are ever present with the deed itself. 

And now the pouring surges, vast and smooth. 
Grew weary of restraint, and heaved themselves 
Headlong beneath him, breaking at his feet 
With wild importunate cries and angry wail; 
Like crowds that shout for bread and hunger more. 
And now the surface of their rolling backs 
Was ridged with foam-topt furrows, rising high 
And dashing wildly, like to fiery steeds, 
Fresh from the Thracian or Thessalian plains. 
High-blooded mares just temi)ering to the bit. 
Whose manes at full-speed stream upon the winds, 
And in whose delicate nostrils when the gust 
Breathes of their native plains, they ramp and rear, 
Frothing the curb, and bounding from the earth, 
As though the Sun-god's chariot alone 
Were fit to follow in their flashing track. 
Anon with gathering stature to the height 
Of those colossal giants, doomed long since 
To torturous grief and penance, that assailed 
The sky-throned courts of Zeus, and climbing, dared 
For once in a world the Olympic wrath, and braved 
The electric spirit which from his clenching hand 
Pierces the dark-veined earth, and with a touch 
80 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

Is death to mortals, fearfully they grew! 

And with like purpose of audacity, 

Threatened Titanic fury to the god. 

Such was the agitation of the sea 

Beneath Poseidon's thought-revolving brows, 

Storming for signal. But no signal came. 

And as when men who congregate to hear 

Some proclamation from the regal fount 

With eager questioning and anxious phrase, 

Betray the expectation of their hearts, 

Till after many hours of fretful sloth. 

Weary with much delay, they hold discourse 

In sullen groups and cloudy masses, stirred 

With rage irresolute and whispering plot. 

Known more by indication than by word. 

And understood alone by those whose minds 

Participate; — even so the restless waves 

Began to lose all sense of servitude, 

And worked with rebel jjassions, bursting, now 

To right, and now to left, but evermore 

Subdued with influence, and controlled with dread 

Of that inviolate Authority. 

Then, swiftly as he mused, the impetuous God 

Seized on the pausing reins, his coursers plunged, 

His brows resumed the grandeur of their ire; 

Throughout his vast divinity the deeps 

Concurrent thrilled with action, and aw^ay, 

As sweeps a thunder-cloud across the sky 

In harvest-time, preluded by dull blasts; 

Or some black-visaged whirlwind, whose wide folds 

Kush, wrestling on with all 'twixt heaven and earth. 

Darkling he hurried, and his distant voice. 

Not softened by delay, was heard in tones 

Distinctlj^ terrible, still following up 

Its rapid utterance of tremendous wrath 

With hoarse reverberations; like the roar 

Of lions when they hunger, and awake 

The sullen echoes from their forest sleep, 

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POEMS WEITTEN IN YOUTH 

To speed the ravenous noise from hill to hill 

And startle victims; but more awful, He, 

Scudding across the hills that rise and sink, 

With foam, and splash, and cataracts of spray. 

Clothed in majestic splendour; girt about 

With sea-gods and swift creatures of the sea; 

Their briny eyes blind with the showering drops; 

Their stormy locks, salt tongues, and scaly backs. 

Quivering in harmony with the tempest, fierce 

And eager with tempestuous delight; — 

He like a moving rock above them all 

Solemnly towering while fitful gleams 

Brake from his dense black forehead, which display'd 

The enduring chiefs as their distracted fleets. 

Tossed, toiling with the waters, climbing high. 

And plunging downward with determined beaks, 

In lurid anguish; but the Cretan king 

And all his crew were 'ware of under-tides, 

That for the groaning vessel made a path, 

On which the impending and precipitous waves 

Fell not, nor suck'd to their abysmal gorge. 

O, happy they to feel the mighty God, 
Without his whelming presence near: to feel 
Safety and sweet relief from such despair, 
And gushing of their weary hopes once more 
Within their fond warm hearts, tired limbs, and eyes 
Heavy with much fatigue and want of sleep! 
Prayers did not lack; like mountain springs they came, 
After the earth has drunk the drenching rains. 
And throws her fresh-born jets into the sun 
With joyous sparkles; — for there needed not 
Evidence more serene of instant grace. 
Immortal mercy! and the sense which follows 
Divine interposition, when the shock 
Of danger hath been thwarted by the Gods, 
Visibly, and through supplication deep, — 
Eose in them, chiefly in the royal mind 
Of him whose interceding vow had saved. 
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POEMS WKITTEN IN YOUTH 

Tears from that great heroic soul sprang up; 

Not painful as in grief, nor smarting keen 

With shame of weeping; but calm, fresh, and sweet; 

Such as in lofty spirits rise, and wed 

The nature of the woman to the man; 

A sight most lovely to the Gods! They fell 

Like showers of starlight from his stedfast eyes, 

As ever towards the prow he gazed, nor moved 

One muscle, with firm lips and level lids. 

Motionless; while the winds sang in his ears. 

And took the length of his brown hair in streams 

Behind him. Thus the hours passed, and the oars 

Plied without pause, and nothing but the sound 

Of the dull rowlocks and still watery sough, 

Far off, the carnage of the storm, was heard. 

For nothing spake the mariners in their toil, 

And all the captains of the war were dumb; 

Too much oppressed with wonder, too much thrilled 

By their great chieftain's silence, to disturb 

Such meditation with poor human speech. 

Meantime the moon through slips of driving cloud 

Came forth, and glanced athwart the seas a path 

Of dusky splendour, like the Hadean brows, 

When with Elysian passion they behold 

Persephone's complacent hueless cheeks. 

Soon gathering strength and lustre, as a ship 

That swims into some blue and open bay 

With bright full-bosomed sails, the radiant car 

Of Artemis advanced, and on the waves 

Sparkled like arrows from her silver bow, 

The keenness of her pure and tender gaze. 

Then, slowly, one by one the chiefs sought rest; 
The watches being set, and men to relieve 
The rowers at midseason. Fair it was 
To see them as they lay! Some up the prow, 
Some round the helm, in open-handed sleep; 
With casques unloosed, and bucklers put aside; 
The ten years' tale of war upon their cheeks, 
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POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

Where clung the salt wet locks, and on their breasts 

Beards, the thick growth of many a proud campaign; 

And on their brows the bright invisible crown 

Victory sheds from her own radiant form. 

As o'er her favourites' heads she sings and soars. 

But dreams came not so calmly, as around 

Turbulent shores wild waves and swamping surf 

Prevail, while seaward, on the tranquil deeps, 

Keign placid surfaces and solemn peace. 

So from the troubled strands of memory, they 

Launched and were tossed, long ere they found the tides 

That lead to the gentle bosoms of pure rest. 

And like to one who from a ghostly watch 

In a lone house where murder hath been done. 

And secret violations, pale with stealth 

Emerges, staggering on the first chill gust 

Wherewith the morning greets him, feeling not 

Its balmy freshness on his bloodless cheek, — 

But swift to hide his midnight face afar, 

'Mongst the old woods and timid-glancing flowers 

Hastens, till on the fresh reviving breasts 

Of tender Dryads folded, he forgets 

The pallid witness of those nameless things, 

In renovated senses lapt, and joins 

The full, keen joyance of the day, so they 

From sights and sounds of battle smeared with blood. 

And shrieking souls on Acheron's bleak tides, 

And wail of execrating kindred, slid 

Into oblivious slumber and a sense 

Of satiate deliciousness complete. 

Leave them, O Muse, in that so happy sleep! 
Leave them to reap the harvest of their toil. 
While fast in moonlight the glad vessel glides, 
As if instinctive to its forest home. 
O Muse, that in all sorrows and all joys, 
Eapturous bliss and suffering divine, 
Dwellest with equal fervour, in the calm 
Of thy serene philosophy, albeit 

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POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

Thy gentle nature is of joy alone, 
And loves the pipings of the happy fields, 
Better than all the great parade and pomp, 
Which foi-ms the train of heroes and of kings. 
And sows, too frequently, the tragic seeds 
That choke with sobs thy singing, — turn away 
Thy lustrous eyes back to the oath-bound man! 
For as a shepherd stands above his flock. 
The lofty figure of the king is seen. 
Standing above his warriors as they sleep: 
And still as from a rock grey waters gush. 
While still the rock is passionless and dark. 
Nor moves one feature of its giant face, 
The tears fall from his eyes, and he stirs not. 

And O, bright Muse! forget not thou to fold 
In thy prophetic sympathy, the thought 
Of him whose destiny has heard its doom: 
The Sacrifice thro' whom the ship is saved. 
Haply that Sacrifice is sleeping now. 
And dreams of glad to-morrows. Haply now. 
His hopes are keenest, and his fervent blood 
Richest with youth, and love, and fond regard! 
Round him the circle of affections blooms. 
And in some happy nest of home he lives. 
One name oft uttering in delighted ears. 
Mother! at which the heart of men are kin 
With reverence and yearning. Haply, too. 
That other name, twin holy, twin revered. 
He whispers often to the passing winds 
That blow toward the Asiatic coasts; 
For Crete has sent her bravest to the war. 
And multitudes pressed forward to that rank. 
Men with sad weeping wives and little ones. 
That other name— O Father! who art thou. 
Thus doomed to lose the star of thy last days? 
It may be the sole flower of thy life. 
And that of all who now look up to thee! 
Oh! Father, Father! unto thee even now 
85 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

Fate cries; the future with imploring- voice, 

Cries ' Save me,' ' Save me,' though thou hearest not, 

And Oh! thou Sacrifice, foredoomed by Zeus. 

Even now the dark inexorable deed 

Is dealing- its relentless stroke, and vain 

Are prayers, and tears, and struggles, and despair! 

The mother's tears, the nation's stormful grief, 

The people's indignation and revenge! 

Vain the last childlike pleading voice for life, 

The quick resolve, the young heroic brow, 

So like, so like, and vainly beautiful! 

Oh! whosoe'er ye are the Muse says not. 

And sees not, but the gods look down on both. 



THE LONGEST DAY 

On yonder hills soft twilight dwells 

And Hesper burns where sunset dies. 
Moist and chill the woodland smells 

From the fern-covered hollows uprise; 

Darkness drops not from the skies. 
But shadows of darkness are flung o'er the vale 

From the boughs of the chestnut, the oak, and the elm, 
While night in yon lines of eastern pines 

Preserves alone her inviolate realm 
Against the twilight pale. 

Say, then say, what is this day. 

That it lingers thus with half-closed eyes. 
When the sunset is quenched and the orient ray 
Of the roseate moon doth rise, 
Like a midnight sun o'er the skies! 
'Tis the longest, the longest of all the glad year, 

The longest in life and the fairest in hue, 
When day and night, in bridal light, 

Mingle their beings beneath the sweet blue, 
And bless the balmy air! 
86 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

Upward to this starry height 

The culminating seasons rolled; 
On one slope green with spring delight, 

The other with harvest gold, 

And treasures of Autumn untold: 
And on this highest throne of the midsummer now 

The waning but deathless day doth dream, 
With a rapturous grace, as tho' from the face 

Of the unveiled infinity, lo, a far beam 

Had fall'n on her dim-flushed brow! 

Prolong, prolong that tide of song 

O leafy nightingale and thrush! 
Still earnest-throated blackcap throng 

The woods with that emulous gush 

Of notes in tumultuous rush. 
Ye summer souls raise up one voice ! 

A charm is afloat all over the land; 
The ripe year doth fall to the Spirit of all, 

Who blesses it with outstretched hand, 
Ye summer souls rejoice! 



TO EOBIN REDBREAST 

Merrily 'mid the faded leaves, 

O Robin of the bright redbreast! 
Cheerily over the Autumn eaves. 

Thy note is heard, bonny bird; 
Sent to cheer us, and kindly endear us 

To what would be a sorrowful time 

Without thee in the weltering clime: 

Merry art thou in the boughs of the lime, 

While thy fadeless waistcoat glows on thy breast, 
In Autumn's reddest livery drest. 



87 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

A merry song*, a cheery song! 

In the bonghs above, on the sward below. 
Chirping and singing the live day long, 

While the maj^le in grief sheds its fiery leaf. 
And all the trees waning, with bitter complaining, 

Chestnnt, and elm, and sycamore, 

Catch the wild giist in their arms, and roar 

Like the sea on a stormy shore, 
Till wailfully they let it go, 
And weep themselves naked and weary with woe. 

Merrily, cheerily, joj'oiisly still 

Pours out the crimson-crested tide. 

The set of the season burns bright on the hill, 
Where the foliage dead falls yellow and red. 

Picturing vainly, but foretelling plainly 

The wealth of cottage warmth that comes 
When the frost gleams and the blood numbs. 
And then, bonny Eobin, I'll spread thee out crumbs 
In my garden porch for thy redbreast pride, 
The song and the ensign of dear fireside. 



SONG 

The daisy now is out upon the green; 

And in the grassy lanes 

The child of April rains. 
The sweet fresh-hearted violet is smelt and loved unseen. 

Along the brooks and meads, the daffodil 

Its yellow richness spreads. 

And by the fountain-heads 
Of rivers, cowslips cluster round, and over every hill. 



88 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

The crocus and the primrose may have g'one, 

The snowdrop may be low, 

But soon the jjurple glow 
Of hyacinths will fill the copse, and lilies watch the dawn. 

And in the sweetness of the budding year, 

The cuckoo's woodland call. 

The skylark over all, 
And then at eve, the nightingale, is doubly sweet and dear. 

My soul is singing with the happy birds. 

And all my human powers 

Are blooming with the flowers. 
My foot is on the fields and downs, among the flocks and herds. 

Deep in the forest where the foliage droops, 

I wander, fill'd with joy. 

Again as when a boy. 
The sunny vistas tempt me on with dim delicious hopes. 

The sunny vistas, dim with hurrying shade. 

And old romantic haze: — 

Again as in past days. 
The spirit of immortal Spring doth every sense pervade. 

Oh! do not say that this will ever cease; — 

This joy of woods and fields, 

This youth that nature yields. 
Will never speak to me in vain, the' soundly rapt in peace. 



89 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 



SUNEISE 

The clouds are withdrawn 

And their thin-rippled mist, 

That stream'd o'er the lawn 

To the drowsy-eyed west. 

Cold and grey 

They slept in the way, 

And shrank from the ray 

Of the chariot East: 

But now they are gone 

And the bounding light 

Leaps thro' the bars 

Of doubtful dawn; 

Blinding the stars, 

And blessing the sight; 

Shedding delight 

On all below; 

Glimmering fields. 

And wakening wealds. 

And rising lark. 

And meadows dark. 

And idle rills, 

And labouring mills, 

And far-distant hills 

Of the fawn and the doe. 

The sun is cheered 

And his path is cleared. 

As he steps to the air 

From his emerald cave, 

His heel in the wave. 

Most briglit and bare; 

In the tide of the sky 

His radiant hair; 

From his temples fair. 

Blown back on high; 

90 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

As forward he bends, 
And upward ascends, 
Timely and true. 
To the breast of the blue; 
His warm red lips 
Kissing the dew, 
Which sweetened drips 
On his flower cupholders; 
Every hue 

Frona his gleaming shoulders 
Shining anew 
With colour sky-born, 
As it washes and dips 
In the pride of the morn. 
Eobes of azure. 
Fringed with amber, 
Fold upon fold 
Of purple and gold, 
Vine-leaf bloom, 
And the grape's ripe gloom, 
When season deep 
In noontide leisure, 
With clustering heap 
The tendrils clamber, 
Full in the face 
Of his hot embrace, 
Fill'd with the gleams 
Of his firmest beams. 
Autumn flushes, 
Roseate blushes. 
Vermeil tinges, 
Violet fringes, 
Every hue 

Of his flower cupholders, 
O'er the clear ether 
Mingled together, 
Shining anew 

From his gleaming shoulders! 
Circling about 
91 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

In a coronal rout, 

And floating behind, 

The way of the wind. 

As forward he bends, 

And upward ascends. 

Timely and true. 

To the breast of the blue. 

His bright neck curved. 

His clear limbs nerved. 

Diamond keen 

On his front serene. 

While each white arm strains 

To the racing reins. 

As plunging, eyes flashing. 

Dripping, and dashing. 

His steeds triple grown. 

Hear up to his throne, 

Eufliing the rest 

Of the sea's blue breast. 

From his flooding, flaming crimson crest! 



PICTURES OF THE RHINE 

I 

The spirit of Romance dies not to those 
Who hold a kindred spirit in their souls: 
Even as the odorous life within the rose 
Lives in the scattered leaflets and controls 
Mysterious adoration, so there glows 
Above dead things a thing that cannot die; 
Faint as the glimmer of a tearful eye. 
Ere the orb fills and all the sorrow flows. 
Beauty renews itself in many ways; 
The flower is fading while the new bud blows; 

93 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

And this dear land as true a symbol shows, 
While o'er it like a mellow sunset strays 
The legendary splendour of old days, 
Invisible, inviolate repose. 

II 

About a mile behind the viny banks, 
How sweet it was, upon a sloping green, 
Sunspread, and shaded with a branching screen, 
To lie in peace half -murmuring words of thanks! 
To see the mountains on each other climb. 
With spaces for rich meadows flowery bright; 
The winding river freshening the sight 
At intervals, the trees in leafy prime; 
The distant village-roofs of blue and white. 
With intersections of quaint-fashioned beams 
All slanting crosswise, and the feudal gleams 
Of ruined turrets, barren in the light; — 
To watch the changing clouds, like clime in clime, 
Oh! sweet to lie and bless the luxury of time. 

Ill 

Fresh blows the early breeze, our sail is full; 
A merry morning and a mighty tide. 
Cheerily O! and past St. Goar we glide, 
Half hid in misty dawn and mountain cool. ' 
The river is our own! and now the sun 
In saffron clothes the warming atmosphere; 
The sky lifts up her white veil like a nun, 
And looks upon the landscape blue and clear; — 
The lark is up; the hills, the vines in sight; 
The river broadens with his waking bliss 
And throws up islands to behold the light; 
Voices begin to rise, all hues to kiss; — 
Was ever such a happy morn as this! 
Birds sing, we shout, flowers breathe, trees shine with one 
delight! 

93 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 



IV 

Between the two white breasts of her we love, 
A dewy blushing rose will sometimes spring; 
Thus Nonnenwerth like an enchanted thing 
Eises mid-stream the crystal depths above. 
On either side the waters heave and swell, 
But all is calm within the little Isle; 
Content it is to give its holy smile, 
And bless with peace the lives that in it dwell. 
Most dear on the dark grass beneath its bower 
Of kindred trees embracing branch and bough, 
To dream of fairy foot and sudden flower; 
Or haply with a twilight on the brow. 
To muse upon the legendary hour, 
And Eoland's lonely love and Hildegard's sad vow. 



Hark! how the bitter winter breezes blow 
Round the sharp rocks and o'er the half-lifted wave, 
While all the rocky woodland branches rave 
Shrill with the piercing cold, and every cave. 
Along the icy water-margin low, 
Rings bubbling with the whirling overflow; 
And sharp the echoes answer distant cries 
Of dawning daylight and the dim sunrise. 
And the gloom-coloured clouds that stain the skies 
With pictures of a warmth, and frozen glow 
Spread over endless fields of sheeted snow; 
And white untrodden mountains shining cold. 
And muffled footpaths winding thro' the wold. 
O'er which those wintry gusts cease not to howl and blow. 

VI 

Rare is the loveliness of slow decay! 
With youth and beauty all must be desired. 
But 'tis the charm of things long past away. 
They leave, alone, the light they have inspired: 
94 



POEMS WEITTEN IN YOUTH 

The calmness of a picture; Memory now 
Is the sole life among- the ruins grey, 
And like a phantom in fantastic play, 
She wanders with rank weeds stuck on her brow, 
Over grass-hidden caves and turret-tops. 
Herself almost as tottering as they; 
While, to the steps of Time, her latest props 
Fall stone by stone, and in the Sun's hot ray 
All that remains stands up in rugged pride. 
And bridal vines drink in his juices on each side. 



TO A NIGHTINGALE 

O nightingale! how hast thou learnt 

The note of the nested dove? 
While under thy bower the fern hangs burnt 

And no cloud hovers above! 
Rich July has many a sky 

With splendour dim, that thou mightst hymn, 
And make rejoice with thy wondrous voice. 

And the thrill of thy wild pervading tone! 
But instead of towoo, thou hast learnt to coo: 
Thy song is mute at the mellowing fruit. 
And the dirge of the flowers is sung by the hours 

In silence and twilight alone. 

O nightingale! 'tis this, 'tis this 

That makes thee mock the dove! 
That thou hast past thy marriage bliss. 

To know a parent's love. 
The waves of fern may fade and burn. 
The grasses may fall, the flowers and all, 
And the pine-smells o'er the oak dells 

Float on their drowsy and odorous wings, 
But thou wilt do nothing but coo, 
Brimming the nest with thy brooding breast, 
Midst that young throng of future song, 

Eound whom the Future sings! 

95 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 



POEMS FROM ^MODERN LOYE' 

(FIRST EDITION) 

GRANDFATHEK BRIDGEMAN 

I 

'Heigh, boys! ' cried Grandfather Bridgeman, 'it's time be- 
fore dinner to-day.' 
He lifted the crumxiled letter, and thumiied a surprising 

' Hurrah! ' 
Up jumped all the echoing young ones, but John, with the 

starch in his throat. 
Said, ' Father, before we make noises, let's see the contents 

of the note.' 
The old man glared at him harshly, and, twinkling made 

answer: ' Too bad! 
John Bridgeman, I'm always the whisky, and you are the 

water, my lad! ' 

II 

But soon it was known thro' the house, and the house ran 

over for joy, 
That news, good news, great marvels, had come from the 

soldier boy; 
Young Tom, the luckless scapegrace, offshoot of Methodist 

John; 
His grandfather's evening tale, whom the old man hailed as 

his son. 
And the old man's shout of pride was a shout of his victory, 

too; 
For he called his affection a method: the neighbours' oijin- 

ions he knew. 

96 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 



III 

Meantime, from the morning table, removing the stout brealc- 
fast cheer, 

The drink of the three generations, the millc, the tea, and 
the beer 

(Alone in its generous reading of pints stood the Grand- 
father's jug), 

The women for sight of the missive came pressing to coax 
and to hug. 

He scattered them quick, with a buss and a smack; there- 
upon he began 

Diversions with John's little Sarah: on Sunday, the naughty 
old man! 



IV 

Then messengers sped to the maltster, the auctioneer, miller, 

and all 
The seven sons of the farmer who housed in the range of 

his call. 
Likewise the married daughters, three plentiful ladies, prime 

cooks, 
Who bowed to him while they condemned, in meek hope to 

stand high in his books. 
' John's wife is a fool at a pudding,' they said, and the light 

carts up hill 
Went merrily, flouting the Sabbath: for puddings well made 

mend a will. 



The day was a van-bird of summer: the robin still piped, but 

the blue. 
As a warm and dreary palace with voices of larks ringing 

thro', ~ . 

97 



dr\JUXj\^, 



Wy 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

Looked down as if wistfully eyeing' the blossoms that fell 

from its lap: 
A day to sweeten the juices: a day to quicken the sap. 
All round the shadowy orchard sloped meadows in g"old, and 

the dear 
Shy violets breathed their hearts out: the maiden breath of 

the year! 



YI 

Full time there was before dinner to bring fifteen of his 
blood, 

To sit at the old man's table: they found that the dinner was 
good. 

But who was she by the lilacs and pouring laburnums con- 
cealed, 

When under the blossoming apple the chair of the Grand- 
father wheeled? 

She heard one little child crying, 'Dear brave Cousin Tom! ' 
as it leapt; 

Then murmured she: ' Let me spare them! ' and passed round 
the walnuts, and wept. 



vn 

Yet not from sight had she slipped ere feminine eyes could 
detect 

The figure of Mary Charlworth. ' It's just what we all might 
expect,' 

Was uttered: and: ' Didn't I tell you? ' Of Mary the rumour 
rcsnuTids, 

That she is now her own mistress, and mistress of five thou- 
sand pounds. 

'Twns she, they say, who cruelly sent young Tom to the war. 

Miss Mary, we thank you now! If you knew what we're 
thanking you for! 

98 



POEMS WEITTEN IN YOUTH 



VIII 

But, ' Have her in: let her hear it,' called Grandfather Bridge- 
man, elate, 

While Mary's black-gloved fingers hung trembling with flight 
on the gate. 

Despite the w^omen's remonstrance, two little ones, lighter 
than deer. 

Were loosed, and Mary imprisoned, her whole face white as 
a tear. 

Came forward with culprit footsteps. Her punishment was 
to commence: 

The pity in her pale visage they read in a dijBferent sense. 



IX 

' You perhaps may remember a fellow. Miss Charlworth, a 

sort of black sheep,' 
The old man turned his tongue to ironical utterance deep: 
' He came of a Methodist dad, so it wasn't his fault if he 

kicked. 
He earned a sad reputation, but Methodists are mortal strict. 
His name was Tom, and, dash me! but Bridgeman I think 

you might add: 
Whatever he was, bear in mind that he came of a Methodist 

dad.' 



X 

This prelude dismally lengthened, till Mary, starting, ex- 
claimed, 

'A letter. Sir, from your grandson?' 'Tom Bridgeman that 
rascal is named,' 



99 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

The old man answered, and further, the words that sent Tom 

to the ranks, 
Repeated as words of a person to whom they all owed mighty 

thanks. 
But Mary never blushed: with her eyes on the letter, she sate, 
And twice interrupting him faltered, ' The date, may I ask, 

Sir, the date ? ' 



XI 

' Why, that's what I never look at in a letter,' the farmer 
replied: 

' Facts first ! and now I'll be parson.' The Bridgeman women 
descried 

A quiver on Mary's eyebrows. One turned, and while shift- 
ing her comb, 

Said low to a sister: ' I'm certain she knows more than we 
about Tom. 

She wants him now he 's a hero! ' The same, resuming her 
place, 

Begged Mary to check them the moment she found it a tedi- 
ous case. 



XII 

Then as a mastiff swallows the snarling noises of cats, 
The voice of the farmer opened. ' " Three cheers, and off 

with your hats! " 
— That's Tom. " We've beaten them, Daddy, and tough work 

it was, to be sure! 
A regular stand-up combat: eight hours smelling powder and 

gore. 
I entered it Serjeant-Major," — and now he commands a salute. 
And carries the flag of old England! Heigh! see him lift 

foes on his foot! 



100 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 



XIII 

* — An officer! ay, Miss Charlworth, he is, or he is so to be; 

You'll own war isn't such humbug: and Glory means some- 
thing, you see. 

" But don't say a word," he continues, " against the brave 
French any more." 

— That stopt me: we'll now march together. I couldn't read 
further before. 

That " brave French " I couldn't stomach. He can't see their 
cunning to get 

Us Britons to fight their battles, while best half the winnings 
they net! ' 

XIV 

The old man sneered, and read forward. It was of that des- 
perate fight; — 

The Muscovite stole thro' the mist-wreaths that wrapped the 
chill Inkermann height. 

Where stood our silent outposts: old England was in them 
that day! 

O sharp worked his ruddy wrinkles, as if to the breath of 
the fray 

They moved! He sat bareheaded: his long hair over him 
slow, 

Swung white as the silky bog-flowers in purple heath-hollows 
that grow. 

XV 

And louder at Tom's first person: acute and in thunder the * I ' 
Invaded the ear with a whinny of triumph, that seem'd to 

defy 
The hosts of the world. All heated, what wonder he little 

could brook 
To catch the sight of Mary's demure puritanical look? 

101 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

And still as he lod the onslaught, his treacherous side-shots 

he sent 
At her who was fighting a battle as fierce, and who sat there 

unbent. 



XVI 

' " We stood in line, and like hedgehogs the Eussians rolled 

under us thick. 
They frightened me there." — He's no coward; for when. Miss, 

they came at the quick. 
The sight, he swears, was a breakfast. — " My stomach felt 

tight: in a glimpse 
I saw you snoring at home with the dear cuddled-up little 

imps. 
And then like the winter brickfields at midnight, hot fire 

lengthened out. 
Our fellows were just leashed bloodhounds: no heart of the 

lot faced about. 



XVII 

' " And only that grumbler. Bob Harris, remarked that we 
stood one to ten: 

' Ye fool,' says Mick Grady, ' just tell 'em they know to com- 
pliment men! ' 

And I sang out your old words: 'If the opposite side isn't 
God's, 

Heigh! after you've counted a dozen, the pluckiest lads have 
the odds.' 

Ping-ping flew the enemies' pepper: the Colonel roared, For- 
ward, and we 

Went at them. 'Twas first like a blanket: and then a long 
plunge in the sea. 



102 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 



XVIII 

* " Well, now about me and the Frenchman: it happened I 
can't tell you how: 

And, Grandfather, hear, if you love me, and j)ut aside preju- 
dice now " : 

He never says " Grandfather " — Tom don't — save it 's a seri- 
ous thing. 

" Well, there were some pits for the rifles, just dug on our 
French-leaning wing: 

And backwards, and forwards, and backwards we went, and 
at last I was vexed. 

And swore I would never surrender a foot when the Russians 
charged next. 



XIX 

•"I know that life's worth keeping." — Ay, so it is, lad; so 

it is! — 
" But my life belongs to a woman." — Does that mean Her 

Majesty, Miss? — 
" These Russians came lumping and grinning: they're fierce 

at it, though they are blocks. 
Our fellows were pretty well pumped, and looked sharp for 

the little French cocks. 
Lord, didn't we pray for their crowing! when over us, on the 

hill-top, 
Behold the first line of them skipping, like kangaroos seen 

on the hop. 



XX ^ 

' *' That sent me into a passion, to think of them spying our 

flight! " 
Heigh, Tom ! you've Bridgeman blood, boy ! And, " ' Face 

them! ' I shouted: ' All right; 
103 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

Sure, Serjeant, we'll take their shot dacent, like gentlemen,' 

Grady replied. 
A ball in his mouth, and the noble old Irishman dropped by 

my side. 
Then there was just an instant to save myself, when a short 

wheeze 
Of bloody lungs under the smoke, and a red-coat crawled up 

on his knees. 

XXI 

<■ " 'Twas Ensign Baynes of our parish." — Ah, ah, Miss Charl- 
worth, the one 

Our Tom fought for a young lady? Come, now we've got 
into the fun! — 

"I shouldered him: he primed his pistol, and I trailed my 
musket, prepared." 

Why, that's a fine pick-a-back for ye, to make twenty Rus- 
sians look scared! 

" They came — never mind how many: we couldn't have run 
very well, 

We fought back to back: 'face to face, our last time! ' he 
said, smiling, and fell. 



XXII 

' " Then I strove wild for his body: the beggars saw glitter- 
ing rings. 

Which I vowed to send to his mother. I got some hard knocks 
and sharp stings, 

But felt them no more than angel, or devil, except in the wind. 

I know that I swore at a Russian for showing his teeth, and 
he grinned 

The harder: quick, as from heaven, a man on a horse rode 
between, 

And fired, and swung his bright sabre: I can't write you 
more of the scene. 

104 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 



XXIII 

' " But half in his arms, and half at his stirrup, he bore me 

right forth, 
And pitched me among my old comrades: before I could tell 

south from north. 
He caught my hand up, and kissed it! Don't ever let any 

man speak 
A word against Frenchmen, I near him! I can't find his 

name, tho' I seek. 
But French, and a General, surely he was, and, God bless 

him! thro' him 
I've learnt to love a whole nation." ' The ancient man paused, 

winking dim. 



XXIV 

A curious look, half woeful, was seen on his face as he turned 
His eyes upon each of his children, like one who but faintly 

discerned 
His old self in an old mirror. Then gathering sense in his fist, 
He sounded it hard on his knee-cap. ' Your hand, Tom, the 

French fellow kissed! 
He kissed my boy's old pounder! I say he's a gentleman! ' 

Straight 
The letter he tossed to one daughter; bade her the remainder 

relate. 



XXV 

Tom properly stated his praises in facts, but the lady pre- 
ferred 

To deck the narration with brackets, and drop her additional 
word. 



105 



POEMS WKITTEN IN YOUTH 

What nohler Christian natures these women could boast, who 

'twas known, 
Once spat at the name of their nephew, and now made his 

praises their own! 
The letter at last was finished, the hearers breathed freely, 

and sign 
Was given, 'Tom's health! ' — Quoth the farmer: * Eh, Miss? 

are you weak in the spine ? ' 



XXVI 

For Mary had sunk, and her body was shaking, as if in a fit. 
Tom's letter she held, and her thumb-nail the month when 

the letter was writ 
Fast-dinted, while she hung sobbing: ' O, see. Sir, the letter 

is old! 
O, do not be too happy! ' — ' If I understand you, I'm bowled! ' 
Said Grandfather Bridgeman, 'and down go my wickets! — 

not happy! when here. 
Here's Tom like to marry his General's daughter — or widow 

■ — I'll swear! 



XXVII 

*I wager he knows how to strut, too! It's all on the cards 

that the Queen 
Will ask him to Buckingham Palace, to say what he's done 

and he's seen. 
Victoria's fond of her soldiers: and she's got a nose for a 

fight. 
If Tom tells a cleverish story — there is such a thing as a 

knight! 
And don't he look roguish and handsome! — To see a girl 

snivelling there — 
By George, Miss, it's clear that you're jealous! ' — ' I love him! * 

she answered his stare. 
106 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 



XXVIII 

'Yes! now! ' breathed the voice of a woman. — 'Ah! now! ' 
quiver'd low the reply. 

' And " now " 's just a bit too late, so it's no use your piping 
your eye.' 

The farmer added bluffly: * Old Lawyer Charlworth was rich; 

You followed his instructions in kicking Tom into the ditch. 

If you're such a dutiful daughter, that doesn't prove Tom is 
a fool. 

Forgive and forget 's my motto! and here's my grog grow- 
ing cool! ' 

XXIX 

' But, Sir,' Mary faintly reiJeated: ' for four long weeks I have 
failed 

To come and cast on you my burden; such grief for you al- 
ways prevailed! 

My heart has so bled for you! ' The old man burst on her 
speech: 

'You've chosen a likely time, Miss! a pretty occasion to 
preach! ' 

And was it not outrageous, that now, of all times, one should 
come 

With incomprehensible pity! Far better had Mj),ry been 
dumb. 

XXX 

But when again she stammered in this bewildering way, 
The farmer no longer could bear it, and begged her to go, 

or to stay. 
But not to be whimpering nonsense at such a time. Pricked 

by a goad, 
' 'Twas you who sent him to glory: — you've come here to reap 

what you sowed, 

107 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

Is that it?' he asked; and the silence the elders preserved, 

plainly said, 
On Mary's heaving bosom this begging, petition was read. 



XXXI 

And that it was scarcely a bargain that she who had driven 
him wild, 

Should share now the fruits of his valour, the women ex- 
pressed, as they smiled. 

The family pride of the Bridgemans was comforted; still, 
with contempt, 

They looked on a monied damsel of modesty quite so exempt. 

' O give me force to tell them! ' cried Mary, and even as she 
spoke, 

A shout and a hush of the children: a vision on all of them 
broke. 

XXXII 

Wheeled, pale, in a chair, and shattered, the wreck of their 

hero was seen; 
The ghost of Tom drawn slow o'er the orchard's shadowy 

green. 
Could this be the martial darling they joyed in a moment ago? 
' He knows it? ' to Mary Tom murmured, and closed his weak 

lids at her ' No.' 
' Beloved! ' she said, falling by him, ' I have been a coward: 

I thought 
You lay in the foreign country, and some strange good might 

be wrought. 

xxxni 

* Each day I have come to tell him, and failed, with my hand 

on the gate. 
I bore the dreadful knowledge, and crushed my heart with 

its weight. 

108 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

The letter brought by your comrade — he has but just read it 

aloud! 
It only reached him this morning! ' Her head on his shoulder 

she bowed. 
Then Tom with pity's tendorest lordliness patted her arm, 
And eyed the old white-head fondly, with something of doubt 

and alarm. 



XXXIV 

O, take to your fancy a sculptor whose fresh marble offspring 
appears 

Before him, shiningly perfect, the laurel-crown'd issue of 
years: 

Is heaven offended? for lightning behold from its bosom 
escape, 

And those are mocking fragments that made the harmonious 
shape! 

He cannot love the ruins, till feeling that ruins alone 

Are left, he loves them threefold. So passed the old grand- 
father's moan. 



XXXV 

John's text for a sermon on Slaughter, he heard, and he did 

not protest. 
All rigid as April's snowdrifts, he stood, hard and feeble; his 

chest 
Just showing the swell of the fire as it melted him. Smiting 

a rib, 
'Heigh! what have we been about, Tom! Was this all a 

terrible fib? ' 
He cried, and the letter forth-trembled. Tom told what the 

cannon had done. 
Few present but ached to see falling those aged tears on his 

heart's son! 

109 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 



XXXVI 

Up lanes of the quiet village, and where the mill-waters rush 
red 

Thro' browning summer meadows to catch the sun's crim- 
soning head, 

You meet an old man and a maiden who has the soft ways 
of a wife 

With one whom they wheel, alternate; whose delicate flush 
of new life 

Is prized like the early primrose. Then shake his right hand, 
in the chair — 

The old man fails never to tell you: ' You've got the French 
General's there! ' 



THE MEETING 

The old coach-road through a common of furze, 

With knolls of pine ran white; 
Berries of autumn, with thistles, and burrs, 

And spider-threads, droop'd in the light. 

The light in a thin blue veil peered sick; 

The sheep grazed close and still; 
The smoke of a farm by a yellow rick 

Curled lazily under a hill. 

No fly shook the round of the silver net; 

No insect the swift bird chased; 
Only two travellers moved and met 

Across that hazy waste. 

One was a girl with a babe that throve. 

Her ruin and her bliss; - 
One was a youth with a lawless love. 

Who clasped it the more for this. 
110 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

The girl for her babe hummed prayerful siieech; 

The youth for his love did pray;. 
Each cast a wistful look on each, 

And either went their way. 



THE BEGGAR'S SOLILOQUY 



Now, this, to my notion, is pleasant cheer, 

To lie all alone on a ragged heath. 
Where your nose isn't snifling for bones or beer. 

But a peat-fire smells like a garden beneath. 
The cottagers bustle about the door, 

And the girl at the window ties her strings. 
She's a dish for a man who's a mind to be jDoor; 

Lord! women are such expensive things. 



II 

We don't marry beggars, says she: why, no: 

It seems that to make 'em is what you do; 
And as I can cook, and scour, and sew, 

I needn't pay half my victuals for you. 
A man for himself should be able to scratch, 

But tickling's a luxury: — love, indeed! 
Love burns as long as the lucifer match, 

Wedlock's the candle! Now, that's my creed. 



Ill 

The church-bells sound water-like over the wheat; 

And up the long path troop pair after pair. 
The man's well-brushed, and the woman looks neat: 

It's man and woman everywhere! 
Ill 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

Unless, like me, you lie here flat, 

With a donkey for friend, you must have a wife: 
She pulls out your hair, but she brushes your hat. 

Appearances make the best half of life. 



IV 

You nice little madam! you know you're nice. 

I remember hearing a parson say 
You're a plateful of vanity pepper'd with vice; 

Yon chap at the gate thinks t' other way. 
On his waistcoat you read both his head and his heart: 

There's a whole week's wages there figured in gold! 
Y'^es! when you turn round you may well give a start: 

It's fun to a fellow who's getting old. 



Now, that's a good craft, weaving waistcoats and flowers, 

And selling of ribbons, and scenting of lard: 
It gives you a house to get in from the showers. 

And food when your appetite jockeys you hard. 
You live a respectable man; but I ask 

If it's worth the trouble? You use your tools, 
And spend your time, and what's your task? 

Why, to make a slide for a couple of fools. 



VI 

You can't match the colour o' these heath mounds, 

Nor better that peat-fire's agreeable smell. 
I'm clothed-like with natural sights and sounds; 

To myself I'm in tune: I hope you're as well. 
You jolly old cot! though you don't own coal: 

It's a generous pot that's boiled with peat. 
Let the Lord Mayor o' London roast oxen whole: 

His smoke, at least, don't smell so sweet. 

112 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 



VII 



I'm not a low Radical, hating the laws. 

Who'd the aristocracy rebuke. 
I talk o' the Lord Mayor o' London because 

I once was on intimate terms with his cook. 
I served him a turn, and got pensioned on scraps, 

And, Lord, Sir! didn't I envy his place, 
Till Death knock'd him down with the softest of taps. 

And I knew what was meant by a tallowy face! 



YIII 

On the contrary, I'm Conservative quite; 

There's beggars in Scripture 'mongst Gentiles and Jews: 
It's nonsense, trying to set things right. 

For if people will give, why, who'll refuse? 
That stopping old custom wakes my spleen: 

The poor and the rich both in giving agree: 
Your tight-listed shoijman's the Radical mean: 

There's nothing in common 'twixt him and me. 



IX 



He says I'm no use! but I won't reply. 

You're lucky not being of use to him! 
On week-days he's playing at Spider and Fly, 

And on Sundays he sings about Cherubim! 
Nailing shillings to counters is his chief work: 

He nods now and then at the name on his door: 
But judge of us two, at a bow and a smirk, 

I think I'm his match: and I'm honest — that's more. 



113 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 



X 



No use! well, I mayn't be. You ring a pig-'s snout. 

And then call the animal glutton! Now, he, 
Mr. Shopman, he's nought but a pipe and a spout 

Who won't let the goods o' this world pass fiee. 
This blazing blue weather all round the brown crop. 

He can't enjoy! all but cash he hates. 
He's only a snail that crawls under his shop; 

Though he has got the ear o' the magistrates. 



XI 



Now, giving and taking's a proper exchange. 

Like question and answer: you're both content. 
But buying and selling seems always strange; 

You're hostile, and that's the thing that's meant. 
It's man against man — you're almost brutes; 

There's here no thanks, and there's here no pride. 
If Charity's Christian, don't blame my pursuits, 

I carry a touchstone by which you're tried. 



XII 

— ' Take it,' says she, ' it's all I've got ': 

I remember a girl in London streets: 
She stood by a coffee-stall, nice and hot. 

My belly was like a lamb that bleats. 
Says I to myself, as her shilling I seized, 

You haven't a character here, my dear! 
Cut for making a rascal like me so pleased, 

I'll give you one, in a better sphere! 



114 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 



XIII 

And that's where it is — she made me feel 

I was a rascal: but people who scorn, 
And tell a poor patch-breech he isn't genteel, 

Why, they make him kick up — and he treads on a com. 
It isn't liking, it's curst ill-luck, 

Drives half of us into the begging- trade: 
If for taking to water you praise a duck. 

For taking to beer why a man upbraid? 



XIV 

The sermon's over: they're out of the porch. 

And it's time for me to move a leg; 
But in general people who come from church. 

And have called themselves sinners, hate chaps to beg. 
I'll wager they'll all of 'em dine to-day! 

I was easy half a minute ago. 
If that isn't pig that's baking away. 

May I perish! — we're never contented — heigho! 



CASSANDRA 
I 

Captive on a foreign shore. 
Far from Ilion's hoary wave, 
Agamemnon's bridal slave 
Speaks Futurity no more: 
Death is busy with her grave. 



115 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 



II 

Thick as water, bursts remote 
Hound her ears the alien din, 
While her little sullen chin 
Fills the hollows of her throat: 
Silent lie her slaughter'd kin. 



in 

Once to many a pealing shriek, 
Lo, from Ilion's topmost tower, 
Ilion's fierce prophetic flower 
Cried the coming of the Greek! 
Black in Hades sits the hour. 



IV 

Eyeing phantoms of the Past, 
Folded like a prophet's scroll, 
In the deep's long shoreward roll 
Here she sees the anchor cast: 
Backward moves her sunless soul. 



Chieftains, brethren of her joy. 
Shades, the white light in their eyes 
Slanting to her lips, arise. 
Crowding quick the plains of Troy: 
Now they tell her not she lies. 



116 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 



VI 

O the bliss upon the plains 
Where the joining heroes clashed 
Shield and spear, and, unabashed. 
Challenged with hot chariot-reins 
Gods! — they glimmer ocean- washed. 



vn 

Alien voices round the ships, 
Thick as water, shouting Home. 
Argives, pale as midnight foam, 
Wax before her awful lips: 
White as stars that front the gloom. 



vin 

Like a torch-flame that by day 
Up the daylight twists, and, pale. 
Catches air in leaps that fail. 
Crushed by the inveterate ray. 
Through her shines the Ten- Years' Tale. 



IX 

Once to many a pealing shriek, 
Lo, from Ilion's topmost tower, 
Ilion's fierce prophetic flower. 
Cried the coming of the Greek! 
Black in Hades sits the hour. 



117 



POEMS WKITTEN IN YOUTH 



Still upon her suTiless soul, 
Gleams the narrow hidden space 
Forward, where her fiery race 
Falters on its ashen goal: 
Still the Future strikes her face. 



XI 

See, toward the conqueror's car 
Step the purple Queen whose hate 
Wraps red-armed her royal mate 
With his Asian tempest-star: 
Now Cassandra views her Fate. 



XII 

King of men! the blinded host 
Shout: — she lifts her brooding chin: 
Glad along the joyous din 
Smiles the grand majestic ghost: 
Clytemnestra leads him in. 



XIII 

Lo, their smoky limbs aloof, 
Shadowing heaven and the seas. 
Fates and Furies, tangling Threes, 
Tear and mix above the roof: 
Fates and fierce Eumenides. 



118 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 



XIV 

Is the prophetess with rods 
Beaten, that she writhes in air? 
With the Gods who never spare, 
Wrestling with the unsparing Gods, 
Lone, her body struggles there. 



XV 

Like the snaky torch-flame white. 
Levelled as aloft it twists, 
She, her soaring arms, and wrists 
Drooping, struggles with the light, 
Helios, bright above all mists! 



XVI 

In his orb she sees the tower. 
Dusk against its flaming rims. 
Where of old her wretched limbs 
Twisted with the stolen power: 
Ilium all the lustre dims! 



XVII 

O the bliss upon the plains. 
Where the joining heroes clashed 
Shield and spear, and, unabashed. 
Challenged with hot chariot-reins 
Gods! — they glimmer ocean -washed. 



119 



POEMS WEITTEN IN YOUTH 



XVIII 

Thrice the Sun-god's name she calls; 
Shrieks the deed that shames the sky; 
Like a fountain leaping high, 
Falling as a fountain falls: 
Lo, the blazing wheels go by! 



XIX 

Captive on a foreign shore, 
Far from II ion's hoary wave, 
Agamemnon's bridal slave 
Speaks Futurity no more: 
Death is busy with her grave. 



THE YOUNG USUEPEK 

On my darling's bosom 
Has dropped a living rosy-bud, 
Fair as brilliant Ilesper 
Against the brimming flood. 
She handles him, 
She dandles him, 
She fondles him and eyes him: 
And if upon a tear he wakes. 

With many a kiss she dries him: 
She covets every move he makes. 
And never enough can prize him. 
Ah, the young Usurper! 
I yield my golden throne: 
Such angel bands attend his hands 
To claim it for his own. 

130 



POEMS WKITTEN IN YOUTH 



MAEGAEET'S BKIDAL-EVE 



The old grey mother she thrummed on her knee: 

There is a rose that's ready; 
And which of the handsome j'oimg men shall it be? 

There's a rose thafs ready for clipping. 

My daughter, come hither, come hither to me: 

There is a rose thafs ready; 
Come, point me your finger on him that you see: 

There's a rose that's ready for clipping. 

O mother, my mother, it never can be: 

There is a rose that's ready; 
For I shall bring shame on the man marries me: 

There's a rose that's ready for clipping. 

Now let your tongue be deep as the sea: 

There is a rose that's ready; 
And the man'll jump for you, right briskly will he: 

There's a rose that's ready for clipping. 

Tall Margaret wept bitterly; 

There is a rose that's ready; 
And as her parent bade did she; 

There's a rose that's ready for clipping. 

O the handsome young man dropped down on his knee; 

There is a rose that's ready; 
Pale Margaret gave him her hand, woe's me! 

There's a rose that's ready for clipping. 
121 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 



II 



O mother, my mother, this thing I must say, 

There is a rose in the garden; 
Ere he lies on the breast where that other lay: 
And the bird sings over the roses. 

Now, folly, my daughter, for men are men: 

There is a rose in the garden; 
You marry them blindfold, I tell you again: 

And the bird sitigs over the roses. 

O mother, but when he kisses me! 

There is a rose in the garden; 
My child, 'tis which shall sweetest be! 

And the bird sings over the roses. 

mother, but when I awake in the morn! 

There is a rose in the garden; 
My child, you are his, and the ring is worn; 
And the bird si7igs over the roses. 

Tall Margaret sighed and loosened a tress; 

There is a rose in the garden; 
Poor comfort she had of her comeliness; 

And the bird sings over the roses. 

My mother will sink if this thing be said: 

There is a rose in the garden; 
That my first betrothed came thrice to my bed; 

And the bird sings over the roses. 

He died on my shoulder the third cold night; 
There is a rose in the garden; 

1 dragged his body all through the moonlight; 

And the bird sings over the roses. 

122 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

But when I came by my father's door; 

There is a rose in the garden; 
I fell in a lump on the stiff dead floor; 

And the bird sings over the roses. 

O neither to heaven, nor yet to hell; 

There is a rose in the garden; 
Could I follow the lover I loved so well! 

And the bird sings over the roses. 



Ill 



The bridesmaids slept in their chambers apart; 

There is a rose thaVs ready; 
Tall Margaret walked with her thumping heart; 

There's a rose that's ready for clipping. 

The frill of her nightgown below the left breast, 

There is a rose that's ready; 
Had fall'n like a cloud of the moonlighted West; 

There's a rose that's ready for clipping. 

But where the West-cloud breaks to a star; 

There is a rose that's ready; 
Pale Margaret's breast showed a winding scar; 

There's a rose that's ready for clipping. 

few are the brides with such a sign! 

There is a rose that's ready; 
Though I went mad the fault was mine; 

There's a rose that's ready for clipping. 

1 must speak to him under this roof to-night; 

There is a rose that's ready; 
I shall burn to death if I speak in the light; 
There's a rose that's ready for clipping. 

123 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

my breast! I must strike you a bloodier wound; 

There is a rose that's ready; 
Than when I scored you red and swooned. 
There's a rose thafs ready for clipping. 

1 will stab my honour under his eye; 

There is a rose that's ready; 
Thoug-h I bleed to the death, I shall let out the lie; 
There's a rose that's ready for clipping. 

O happy my bridesmaids! white sleep is with you! 

There is a rose that's ready; 
Had he chosen among you he might sleep too! 

There's a rose that's ready for clipping. 

O happy my bridesmaids! your breasts are clean; 

There is a rose that's ready; 
You carry no mark of what has been! 

There's a rose that's ready for clipping. 



IV 



An hour before the chilly beam, 

Red rose and white in the garden; 

The bridegroom started out of a dream, 
And the bird sings over the roses. 

He went to the door, and there espied 
Red rose and white in the garden; 

The figure of his silent bride, 

And the bird si7igs over the roses. 

He went to the door, and let her in; 

Red rose and tohite in the garden; 
Whiter looked she than a child of sin; 

And the bird sings over the roses. 
124 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

She looked so white, she looked so sweet; 

Red rose and white in the garden; 
She looked so pure he fell at her feet; 

And the bird sings over the roses. 

He fell at her feet with love and awe; 

Red rose and white in the garden; 
A stainless body of light he saw; 

And the hird sings over the roses. 

Margaret, say you are not of the dead! 

Red rose and ichite in the garden; 
My bride! by the angels at night are you led? 
And the hird sings over the roses. 

1 am not led by the angels about; 

Red rose and white in the garden; 
But I have a devil within to let out; 
And the bird sings over the roses. 

Margaret! my bride and saint! 

Red rose and white in the garden; 
There is on you no earthly taint: 

And the bird sings over the roses. 

1 am no saint, and no bride can I be, 

Red rose and white in the garden; 
Until I have opened my bosom to thee; 
And the bird sings over the roses. 

To catch at her heart she laid one hand; 

Red rose an4 white in the garden; 
She told the tale where she did stand; 

And the bird sings over the roses. 

She stood before him pale and tall; 

Red rose and white in the garden; 
Her eyes between his, she told him all; 

And the bird sings over the roses. 
125 



POEMS WKITTEN IN YOUTH 

She saw how her body grew freckled and foul; 

Red rose and white in the garden; 
She heard from the woods the hooting owl; 

And the bird sings over the roses. 

With never a quiver her mouth did speak; 

Red rose and ivhite in the garden; 
O when she had done she stood so meek! 

And the bird sings over the roses. 

The bridegroom stamped and called her vile; 

Red rose and white in the garden; 
He did but waken a little smile; 

And the bird sings over the roses. 

The bridegroom raged and called her foul; 

Red rose and white in the garden; 
She heard from the woods the hooting owl; 

And the bird sings over the roses. 

He muttered a name full bitter and sore; 

Red rose and white in the garden; 
She fell in a lump on the still dead floor; 

And the bird sings over the roses. 

O great was the wonder, and loud the wail, 
Red rose and white in the garden; 

When through the household flew the tale; 
And the bird sings over the roses. 

The old grey mother she dressed the bier; 

Red rose and white in the garden; 
With a shivering chin and never a tear; 

And the bird sings over the roses. 

O had you but done as I bade you, my child! 

Red rose and white in the garden; 
You would not have died and been reviled; 

And the bird sings over the roses. 
126 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

The bridegroom he hung at midnight by the bier; 

Red rose and white in the garden; 
He eyed the white girl thro' a dazzling tear; 

And the bird sings over the roses. 

O had you been false as the women who stray; 

Red rose and white in the garden; 
You would not be now with the Angels of Day! 

And the bird sings over the roses. 



THE HEAD OF BKAN THE BLEST 



When the Head of Bran 

Was firm on British shoulders, 
God made a man! 

Cried all beholders. 

Steel could not resist 

The weight his arm would rattle; 
He, with naked fist, 

Has brain'd a knight in battle. 

He marched on the foe, 

And never counted numbers; 

Foreign widows know 

The hosts he sent to slumbers. 

As a street you scan. 

That's towered by the steeple. 
So the Head of Bran 

Hose o'er his people. 
127 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 



II 

' Death's my neighbour,' 

Quoth Bran the Blest; 
' Christian labour 

Brings Christian rest. 
From the trunk sever 

The Head of Bran, 
That which never 

Has bent to man! 

' That which never 

To men has bowed, 
Shall live ever 

To shame the shroud: 
Shall live ever 

To face the foe; 
Sever it, sever, 

And with one blow. 

* Be it written. 

That all I wrought 
Was for Britain, 

In deed and thought: 
Be it written, 

That while I die. 
Glory to Britain! 

Is my last cry. 

'Glory to Britain! 

Death echoes me round. 
Glory to Britain! 

The world shall resound. 
Glory to Britain! 

In ruin and fall, 
Glory to Britain! 

Is heard over all.' 
128 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTU 



III 



Burn, Sun, down the sea! 
Bran lies low with thee. 

Burst, Morn, from the main! 
Bran so shall rise again. 

Blow, Wind, from the field! 
Bran's Head is the Briton's shield. 

Beam, Star, in the West! 

Bright burns the Head of Bran the Blest. 



IV 

Crimson-footed, like the stork, 

From great ruts of slaughter, 
Warriors of the Golden Torque, 

Cross the lifting water. 
Princes seven, enchaining hands, 

Bear the live head homeward. 
Lo! it speaks, and still commands: 

Gazing out far foamward. 

Fiery words of lightning sense, 

Down the hollows thunder; 
Forest hostels know not whence 

Comes the speech, and wonder. 
City-Castles, on the steep. 

Where the faithful Seven 
House at midnight, hear, in sleep. 

Laughter under heaven. 

129 



POEMS WllITTEN IN YOUTH 

Lilies, swimming on the mere. 

In the castle shadow. 
Under draw their heads, and Fear 

Walks the misty meadow. 
Tremble not! it is not Death 

Pledg-ing dark espousal: 
'Tis the Head of endless breath. 

Challenging carousal! 

Brim the horn! a health is drunk, 

Now, that shall keep going: 
Life is but the pebble sunk; 

Deeds, the circle growing! 
Fill, and pledge the Head of Bran! 

While his lead they follow. 
Long shall heads in Britain plan 

Sj)eech Death cannot swallow! 



BY MORNIXG TWILIGHT 

Night, like a dying mother. 
Eyes her young offspring, Day. 
The birds are dreamily jiiping. 
And O, my love, my darling! 

The night is Jife ebb'd away: 
Away beyond our reach! 
A sea that has cast us pale on the beach; 

Weeds with the weeds and the pebbles 

That hear the lone tamarisk rooted in sand, 

Sway 

With the song of the sea to the land. 



130 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTU 



AUTUMN EVEN-SONG 

The long cloud edged with streaming grey, 

Soars from the West; 
The red leaf mounts with it away, 

Showing the nest 
A blot among the branches bare: 
There is a cry of outcasts in the air. 



Swift little breezes, darting chill, 
Pant down the lake; 
A crow flies from the yellow hill. 
And in its wake 
A baffled line of labouring rooks: 
Steel-surfaced to the light the river looks. 



Pale on the panes of the old hall 

Gleams the lone space 
Between the sunset and the squall; 
And on its face 
Mournfully glimmers to the last: 
Great oaks grow mighty minstrels in the blast. 



Pale the rain-rutted roadways shine 

In the green light 
Behind the cedar and the pine: 

Come, thundering night! 
Blacken broad earth with hoards of storm: 
For me yon valley-cottage beckons warm. 



131 



POEMS WKITTEN IN YOUTH 



UNKNOWN FAIR FACES 

Though I am faithful to my loves lived through, 

And place them among Memory's great stars, 

Where burns a face like Hesper: one like Mars: 

Of visages I get a moment's view. 

Sweet eyes that in the heaven of me, too. 

Ascend, tho' virgin to my life they passed. 

Lo, these within my destiny seem glassed 

At times so bright, I wish that Hope were new. 

A gracious freckled lady, tall and grave. 

Went in a shawl voluminous and white, 

Last sunset by; and going sow'd a glance. 

Earth is too poor to hold a second chance; 

I will not ask for more than Fortune gave: 

My heart she goes from — never from my sight! 



PHANTASY 



Within a Temple of the Toes, 

Where twirled the passionate Wili, 
I saw full many a market rose. 

And sighed for nay village lily. 



II 



With cynical Adrian then I took flight 
To that old dead city whose carol 

Bursts out like a reveller's loud in the night. 
As he sits astride his barrel. 
132 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 



III 

We two were bound the Alps to scale, 
Up the rock-reflecting river; 

Old times blew thro' me like a gale, 

And kept my thoughts in a quiver. 



IV 



Hawking ruin, wood-slope, and vine, 
Reeled silver-laced under my vision, 

And into me passed, with the green-eyed wine 
Knocking hard at my head for admission. 



I held the village lily cheap. 

And the dream around her idle: 

Lo, quietly as I lay to sleep. 

The bells led me off to a bridal. 



VI 



My bride wore the hood of a Benguine, 
And mine was the foot to falter; 

Three cowled monks, rat-eyed, were seen; 
The Cross was of bones o'er the altar. 



vn 

The Cross was of bones; the priest that read, 

A spectacled necromancer: 
But at the fourth word, the bride I led, 

Changed to an Opera dancer. 
133 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 



VIII 

A young ballet-beauty, who perked in her place, 

A darling of pink and spangles; 
One fair foot level with her face, 

And the hearts of men at her ankles. 



IX 



She whirled, she twirled, the mock-priest grinned, 

And quickly his mask unriddled; 
'Twas Adrian! loud his old laughter dinned; 

Then he seized a fiddle, and fiddled. 



He fiddled, he glowed with the bottomless fire. 

Like Sathanas in feature: 
All through me he fiddled a wolfish desire 

To dance with that bright creature. 



XI 



And gathering courage I said to my soul. 

Throttle the thing that hinders! 
When the three cowled monks, from black as coal, 

Waxed hot as furnace-cinders. 



xn 

They caught her up, twirling: they leapt between-whiles: 

The fiddler fiickered with laughter: 
Profanely they flew down the awful aisles, 

Where I went sliding after. 
13^ 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 



XIII 

Down the awful aisles, by the fretted walls, 
Beneath the (Jothic arches: — 

King- Skull in the black confessionals 
Sat rub-a-dub-dubbing his marches. 



XIV 

Then the silent cold stone warriors frowned. 
The pictured saints strode forward: 

A whirlwind swept them from holy ground; 
A tempest pulled them nor'ward. 



XV 



They shot through the great cathedral door; 

Like mallards they traversed ocean: 
And gazing below, on its boiling floor, 

I marked a horrid commotion. 



XVI 

Down a forest's long alleys they spun like tops: 
It seemed that for ages and ages. 

Thro' the Book of Life bereft of stops, 
They waltzed continuous pages. 



XVII 

And ages after, scarce awake. 

And my blood with the fever fretting, 
I stood alone by a forest-lake, 

Whose shadows the moon were netting. 
135 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 



XVIII 

Lilies, golden and white, by the curls 

Of their broad flat leaves hung swaying. 

A wreath of languid twining girls 

Streamed upward, long locks disarraying. 



XIX 

Their cheeks had the satin frost-glow of the moon; 

Their eyes the fire of Sirius. 
They circled, and droned a monotonous tune, 

Abandoned to love delirious. 



XX 



Like lengths of convolvulus torn from the hedge, 

And trailing the highway over. 
The dreamy-eyed mistresses circled the sedge. 

And called for a lover, a lover! 



XXI 

I sank, I rose through seas of eyes. 
In odorous swathes delicious: 

They fanned me with impetuous sighs, 
They bit me with kisses vicious. 



XXII 

My ears were spelled, my neck was coiled, 
And I with their fury was glowing. 

When the marbly waters bubbled and boiled 
At a watery noise of crowing. 
136 



POEMS WKITTEN IN YOUTH 



XXIII 

They dragged me low and low to the lake: 
Their kisses more stormily showered; 

On the emerald brink, in the white moon's wake, 
An earthly damsel cowered. 



XXIV 

Fresh heart-sobs shook her knitted hands 

Beneath a tiny suckling, 
As one by one of the doleful bands 

Dived like a fairy duckling. 



XXV 

And now my turn had come — O me! 

What wisdom was mine that second! 
I dropped on the adorer's knee; 

To that sweet figure I beckoned. 



XXVI 

Save me! save me! for now I know 
The powers that Nature gave me. 

And the value of honest love I know: — 
My village lily! save me! 



XXVII 

Come 'twixt me and the sisterhood, 

While the passion-born phantoms are fleeing! 
Oh, he that is true to flesh and blood, 

Is true to his own being! 
137 



POEMS WKITTEN IN YOUTH 



XXVIII 

And he that is false to flesh and blood. 
Is false to the star within him: 

And the mad and hungry sisterhood 
All under the tides shall win him! 



XXIX 

My village lily! save me! save! 

For strength is with the holy: — 
Already I shuddered to feel the wave. 

As I kept sinking slowlj': — 



XXX 

I felt the cold wave and the under-tug 

Of the Brides, when — starting and shrinking- 

Lo, Adrian tilts the water-jug! 

And Bruges with morn is blinking. 



XXXI 

Merrily sparkles sunny prime 
On gabled peak and arbour: 

Merrily rattles belfry-chime 

The song of Sevilla's Barber. 



138 



POEMS WKITTEN IN YOUTH 



SHEMSELNIHAR 

O my lover! the night like a broad smooth wave 

Bears us onward, and morn, a black rock, shines wet. 

How I shuddered — I knew not that I was a slave. 

Till I looked on thy face: — then I writhed in the net. 

Then I felt like a thing caught by fire, that her star 

Glowed dark on the bosom of Shemselnihar. 

And he came, whose I am: O my lover! he came: 
And his slave, still so envied of women, was I: 

And I turned as a hissing leaf spits from the flame, 

Yes, I shrivelled to dust from him, haggard and dry. 

forgive her: — she was but as dead lilies are: 
The life of her heart fled from Shemselnihar. 

Yet with thee like a full throbbing rose how I bloom! 

Like a rose by the fountain whose showering we hear, 
As we lie, O vay lover! in this rich gloom. 

Smelling faint the cool breath of the lemon-groves near. 
As we lie gazing out on that glowing great star — 
Ah! dark on the bosom of Shemselnihar. 

Yet with thee am I not as an arm of the vine. 

Firm to bind thee, to cherish thee, feed thee sweet? 

Swear an oath on my lip to let none disentwine 

The life that here fawns to give warmth to thy feet. 

1 on thine, thus! no more shall that jewelled Head jar 
The music thou breathest on Shemselnihar. 

Far away, far away, where the wandering scents 

Of all flowers are sweetest, white mountains among, 

There my kindred abide in their green and blue tents: 
Bear me to them, my lover! they lost me so young. 

Let us slip down the stream and leap steed till afar 

None question thy claim upon Shemselnihar. 

139 



POEMS WEITTEN IN YOUTH 

O that long note the bulbul gave out — meaning love! 

O my lover, hark to him and think it my voice! 
The blue night like a great bell-flower from above 

Drooping low and gold-eyed: 0, but hear him rejoice! 
Can it be? 'twas a flash! that accurst scimitar 
In thought even cuts thee from Shemselnihar. > 

Yes, I would that, less generous, he would oppress, 

He would chain me, upbraid me, burn deep brands for 
hate. 

Than with this mask of freedom and gorgeousness, 
Bespangle my slavery, mock my strange fate. 

Would, would, would, O my lover, he knew — dared debar 

Thy coming, and earn curse of Shemselnihar! 



A EOAR THROUGH THE TALL TWIN ELM- 
TREES 

A roar thro' the tall twin elm-trees 
The mustering storm betrayed: 

The South-wind seized the willow 
That over the water swayed. 

Then fell the steady deluge 

In which I strove to doze, 
Hearing all night at my window 

The knock of the winter rose. 

The rainy rose of winter! 

An outcast of must pine. 
And from thy bosom outcast 

Am I, dear lady mine. 



140 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 



WHEN I WOULD IMAGE 

When I would image her features, 
Comes up a shrouded head: 

I touch the outlines, shrinking; 

She seems of the wandering dead. 

But when love asks for nothing. 
And lies on his bed of snow, 

The face slips under my eyelids, 
All in its living glow. 

Like a dark cathedral city, 

Whose spires, and domes, and towers 
Quiver in violet lightnings. 

My soul basks on for hours. 



I CHAFE AT DAEKNESS 

I chafe at darkness in the night. 

But when 'tis light, 
Hope shuts her eyes; the clouds are pale; 
The fields stretch cold into a distance hard: 
I wish again to draw the veil 

Thousand-starred. 

Am I of them whose blooms are shed. 

Whose fruits are spent, 
Who from dead eyes see Life half dead; — 
Because desire is feeble discontent? 

Ah, no! desire and hope should die. 
Thus were I. 



141 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

But in me something clipped of wing, 

Within its ring 
Frets; for I have lost what made 
The dawn-breeze magic, and the twilight beam 
A hand with tidings o'er the glade 

Waving seem. 



BY THE EOSANNA 

To F. M. 

Stanzeb Thal, Ttbol. 

The old grey Alp has caught the cloud, 

And the torrent river sings aloud; 

The glacier-green Eosaiina sings 

An organ song of its upper springs. 

Foaming under the tiers of pine, 

I see it dash down the dark ravine. 

And it tumbles the rocks in boisterous play. 

With an earnest will to find its way. 

Sharp it throws out an emerald shoulder. 

And, thundering ever of the mountain. 
Slaps in sport some giant boulder. 

And tops it in a silver fountain. 
A chain of foam from end to end. 
And a solitude so deep, my friend, 
You may forget that man abides 
Beyond the great mute mountain-sides. 
Yet to me, in this high-walled solitude 
Of river and rock and forest rude, 
The roaring voice through the long white chain. 
Is the voice of the world of bubble and brain. 



143 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 



ODE TO THE SPIEIT OF EARTH IN AUTUMN 

Fair Mother Earth lay on her back last night, 

To gaze her fill on Autumn's sunset skies, 

When at a waving of the fallen light, 

Sprang realms of rosy fruitage o'er her eyes. 

A lustrous heavenly orchard hung the West, 

Wherein the blood of Eden bloomed again: 

Eed were the myriad cherub-mouths that pressed. 

Among the clusters, rich with song, full fain. 

But dumb, because that overmastering spell 

Of rapture held them dumb: then, here and there, 

A golden harp lost strings; a crimson shell 

Burnt grey; and sheaves of lustre fell to air. 

The illimitable eagerness of hue 

Bronzed, and the beamy winged bloom that flew 

'Mid those bunched fruits and thronging figures failed, 

A green-edged lake of saffron touched the blue, 

With isles of fireless purple lying through: 

And Fancy on that lake to seek lost treasures sailed. 

Not long the silence followed: 

The voice that issues from the breast, 
O glorious South-west, 

Along the gloom-horizon holloa'd; 
Warning the valleys with a mellow roar 
Through flapping wings; then sharp the woodland bore 

A shudder and a noise of hands: 

A thousand horns from some far vale 

In ambush sounding on the gale. 

Forth from the cloven sky came bands 
Of revel-gathering spirits; trooping down. 
Some rode the tree-tops; some on torn cloud-strips 

Burst screaminP" thro' the lighted town: 



143 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

And scudding seaward, some fell on big- ships: 
Or mounting the sea-horses blew 
Bright foam-flakes on the black review 
Of heaving hulls and burying beaks. 

Still on the farthest line, with outpuffed cheeks, 
'Twixt dark and utter dark, the great wind drew 
From heaven that disenchanted harmony 
To join earth's laughter in the midnight blind: 
Booming a distant chorus to the shrieks 

Preluding him: then he, 
His mantle streaming thunderingly behind. 
Across the yellow realm of stiffened Day, 
Shot thro' the woodland alleys signals three; 

And with the pressure of a sea. 
Plunged broad upon the vale that under lay. 

Night on the rolling foliage fell: 
But I, who love old hymning night. 
And know the Dryad voices well. 
Discerned them as their leaves took flight, 
Like souls to wander after death: 
Great armies in imperial dyes. 
And mad to tread the air and rise. 
The savage freedom of the skies 
To taste before they rot. And here. 
Like frail white-bodied girls in fear, 
The birches swung from shrieks to sighs; 
The aspens, laughers at a breath, 
In showering spray-falls mixed their cries, 
Or raked a savage ocean-strand 
With one incessant drowning screech. 
Here stood a solitary beech, 
That gave its gold with open hand. 
And all its branches, toning chill. 
Did seem to shut their teeth right fast. 
To shriek more mercilessly shrill, 
And match the fierceness of the blast. 
144 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

But heard I a low swell that noised 

Of far-off ocean, I was 'ware 

Of pines upon their wide roots poised, 

Whom never madness in the air 

Can draw to more than loftier stress 

Of mournfulness, not mournfulness 

For melancholy, but Joy's excess, 
That singing, on the lap of sorrow faints: 

And Peace, as in the hearts of saints 

Who chant unto the Lord their God; 
Deep Peace below upon the muffled sod. 
The stillness of the sea's unswaying floor. 

Could I be sole there not to see 

The life within the life awake; 

The spirit bursting frora the tree. 

And rising from the troubled lake? 

Pour, let the wines of Heaven pour! 

The Golden Harp is struck once more, 

And all its music is for me! 

Pour, let the wines of Heaven pour! 

And, ho, for a night of Pagan glee! 

There is a curtain o'er us. 
For once, good souls, we'll not pretend 
To be aught better than her who bore us. 
And is our only visible friend. 
Hark to her laughter! who laughs like this, 
Can she be dead, or rooted in pain? 
She has been slain by the narrow brain. 
But for us who love her she lives again. 

Can she die? O, take her kiss! 

The crimson-footed nymph is panting up the glade. 

With the wine-jar at her arm-pit, and the drunken ivy-braid 

Round her forehead, breasts, and thighs: starts a Satyr, and 

they speed: 
Hear the crushing of the leaves: hear the cracking of the 

bough! 
And the whistling of the bramble, the piping of the weed! 

145 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

But the bull-voiced oak is battling now: 
The storm has seized him half-asleep, 
And round him the wild woodland throngs 
To hear the fury of his songs, 
The uproar of an outraged deep. 
He wakes to find a wrestling giant 
Trunk to trunk and limb to limb, 
And on his rooted force reliant, 
He laughs and grasps the broadened giant, 
And twist and roll the Anakim; 
And multitudes acclaiming to the cloud. 
Cry which is breaking, which is bowed. 

Away, for the cymbals clash aloft 
In the circles of pine, on the moss-floor soft. 
The nymjjhs of the woodland are gathering there. 
They huddle the leaves, and trample, and toss; 
They swing in the branches, they roll in the moss, 

They blow the seed on the air. 
Back to back they stand and blow 
The winged seed on the cradling air, 
A fountain of leaves over bosom and back. 
The jjipe of the Faun comes on their track. 
And the weltering alleys overflow 
With musical shrieks and wind-wedded hair. 
The riotous companies melt to a pair. 

Bless them, mother of kindness! 

A star has nodded through 
The depths of the flying blue. 
Time only to plant the light 
Of a memory in the blindness. 
But time to show me the sight 
Of my life thro' the curtain of night; 
Shining a moment, and mixed 
With the onward-hurrying stream. 
Whose pressure is darkness to me; 
Behind the curtain, fixed, 
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POEMS WEITTEN IN YOUTH 

Beams with endless beam 
That star on the changing sea. 

Great Mother Nature! teach me, lilie thee. 
To kiss the season and shun regrets. 
And am I more than the mother who bore, 
Mock me not with thy harmony! 

Teach me to blot regrets, 

Great Mother! me inspire 

With faith that forward sets 

But feeds the living fire. 

Faith that never frets 

For vagueness in the form. 

In life, O keep me warm! 

For, what is human grief? 

And what do men desire? 
Teach me to feel myself the tree, 

And not the withered leaf. 
Fixed am I and await the dark to-be! 

And O, green bounteous Earth! 
Bacchante Mother! stern to those 
Who live not in thy heart of mirth; 
Death shall I shrink from, loving thee? 
Into the breast that gives the rose. 

Shall I with shuddering fall? 

Earth, the mother of all, 
Moves on her stedfast way. 
Gathering, flinging, sowing. 
Mortals, we live in her day. 
She in her children is growing. 

She can lead us, only she, 
Unto God's footstool, whither she reaches: 
Loved, enjoyed, her gifts must be, 
Reverenced the truths she teaches, 
Ere a man may hope that he 
Ever can attain the glee 
Of things without a destiny! 
147 



POEMS WEITTEN IN YOUTH 

She knows not loss: 
She feels but her need, 
Who the winged seed 
With the leaf doth toss. 

And may not men to this attain? 
That the joy of motion, the rapture of being", 
Shall throw strong light when our season is fleeing, 
Nor quicken aged blood in vain. 
At the gates of the vault, on the verge of the plain? 
Life thoroughly lived is a fact in the brain, 
While eyes are left for seeing. 

Behold, in yon stripped Autumn, shivering grey. 
Earth knows no desolation. 
She smells regeneration 
In the moist breath of decay. 

Prophetic of the coming joy and strife. 

Like the wild western war-chief sinking 
Calm to the end he eyes unblinking. 

Her voice is jubilant in ebbing life. 

He for his happy hunting-fields. 
Forgets the droning chant, and yields 
His numbered breaths to exultation 
In the proud anticipation: 
Shouting the glories of his nation, 
Shouting the grandeur of his race. 
Shouting his own great deeds of daring: 
And when at last death grasps his face. 
And stiffened on the ground in peace 

He lies with all his painted terrors glaring; 

Hushed are the tribe to hear a threading cry: 
Not from the dead man; 
Not from the standers-by: 
The spirit of the red man 

Is welcomed by his fathers up on high. 

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POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

THE DOE: A FEAGMENT 

(From ' Wandering Willie ') 

And — 'Yonder look! yoho! yoho! 
Nancy is off! ' the farmer cried, 
Advancing by the river side, 
Red-kerchieft and brown-coated; — ' So, 
My girl, who else could leap Ifke that? 
So neatly! like a lady! 'Zounds! 
Look at her how she lead^ the hounds! ' 
And waving his dusty beaver hat. 
He cheered across the chase-filled water, 
And clapt his arm about his daughter. 
And gave to Joan a courteous bug, 
And kiss that, like a stubborn plug 
From generous vats in vastness rounded, 
The inner wealth and spirit sounded: 
Eagerly pointing South, where, lo. 
The daintiest, fleetest-footed doe 
Led o'er the fields and thro' the furze 
Beyond: her lively delicate ears 
Prickt up erect, and in her track 
A dappled lengthy-striding pack. 

Scarce had they cast eyes upon her. 
When every heart was wagered on her. 
And half in dread, and half delight. 
They watched her lovely bounding flight; 
As now across the flashing green, 
And now beneath the stately trees. 
And now far distant in the dene. 
She headed on with graceful ease: 
Hanging aloft with doubled knees. 
At times athwart some hedge or gate; 
And slackening pace by slow degrees, 
As for the foremost foe to wait. 
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POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

Renewing- her outstripping- rate 

Whene'er the hot pursuers neared, 

By garden wall and paled estate, 

Where clambering- gazers whooped and cheered. 

Here winding- under elm and oak, 

And slanting up the sunny hill: 

Splashing the water here like smoke 

Among the mill-holms round the mill. 

And — ' Let her go; she shows her game, 
My Nancy girl, my pet and treasure! ' 
The farmer sighed: his eyes with pleasure 
Brimming: ' 'Tis my daughter's name. 
My second daughter lying yonder.' 
And Willie's eye in search did wander, 
And caught at once, with moist regard. 
The white gleams of a grey churchyard. 
* Three weeks before my girl had gone, 
And while upon her pillows propped, 
She lay at eve; the weakling fawn — 
For still it seems a fawn just dropt 
A se'nnight — to my Nancy's bed 
I brought to make mj^ girl a gift: 
The mothers of them both were dead: 
And both to bless it was mj' drift, 
By giving each a friend; not thinking 
How rapidly my girl was sinking. 
And I remember how, to pat 
Its neck, she stretched her hand so weak, 
And its cold nose against her cheek 
Pressed fondly: and I fetched the mat 
To make it up a couch just by her. 
Where in the lone dark hours to lie: 
For neither dear old nurse nor I 
Would any single wish deny her. 
And there unto the last it lay; 
And in the pastures cared to play 
Little or nothings there its meals 
And milk I brought: and even now 
150 



POEMS WKITTEN IN YOUTH 

The creature such affection feels 

For that old room that, when and how, 

'Tis strange to mark, it slinks and steals 

To get there, and all day conceals. 

And once when nurse who, since that time. 

Keeps house for me, was very sick. 

Waking upon the midnight chime. 

And listening to the stair-clock's click, 

I heard a rustling, half uncertain. 

Close against the dark bed-curtain: 

And while I thrust my leg to kick. 

And feel the phantom with my feet, 

A loving tongue began to lick 

My left hand lying on the sheet; 

And warm sweet breath upon me blew. 

And that 'twas Nancj^ then I knew. 

So, for her love, I had good cause 

To have the creature " Nancy " christened.' 

He paused, and in the moment's pause. 
His eyes and Willie's strangely glistened. 
Nearer came Joan, and Bessy hung 
With face averted, near enough 
To hear, and sob unheard ; the young 
And careless ones had scampered off 
Meantime, and sought the loftiest place 
To beacon the approaching chase. 

• Daily upon the meads to browse. 
Goes Nancy with those dairy cows 
You see behind the clematis: 
And such a favourite she is. 
That when fatigued, and helter skelter. 
Among them from her foes to shelter. 
She dashes when the chase is over. 
They'll close her in and give her cover. 
And bend their horns against the hounds, 
And low, and keep them out of bounds! 

151 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

From the house dog-s she dreads no harm, 

And is good friends with all the farm, 

Man, and bird, and beast, howbeit 

Their natures seem so opposite. 

And she is known for many a mile, 

And noted for her splendid style, 

For her clear leap and quick slight hoof; 

Welcome she is in many a roof. 

And if I say, I love her, man! 

I say but little: her fine eyes full 

Of memories of my girl, at Yule 

And May-time, make her dearer than 

Dumb brute to men has been, I think. 

So dear I do not find her dumb. 

I know her ways, her slightest wink. 

So well; and to my hand she'll come, 

Sidelong, for food or a caress. 

Just like a loving human thing. 

Nor can I help, I do confess. 

Some touch of human sorrowing 

To think there may be such a doubt 

That from the next world she'll be shut out, 

And parted from me! And well I mind 

How, when my girl's last moments came, 

Her soft eyes very soft and kind. 

She joined her hands and prayed the same, 

That she " might meet her father, mother. 

Sister Bess, and each dear brother. 

And with them, if it might be, one 

Who was her last companion." 

Meaning the fawn — the doe you mark — 

For my bay mare was then a foal. 

And time has passed since then: — but hark! * 

For like the shrieking of a soul 
Shut in a tomb, a darkened cry 
Of inward-wailing agony 
Surprised them, and all eyes on each 
Fixed in the mute-appealing speech 
152 



POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH 

Of self -reproachful apprehension: 
Knowing- not what to think or do: 
But Joan, recovering first, broke through 
The instantaneous suspension, 
And knelt upon the ground, and guessed 
The bitterness at a glance, and pressed 
Into the comfort of her breast, 
The deep-throed quaking shape that drooped 
In misery's wilful aggravation. 
Before the farmer as he stooped. 
Touched with accusing consternation: 
Soothing her as she sobbed aloud: — 
* Not me! not me! Oh, no, no, no! 
Not me! God will not take me in! 
Nothing can wipe away my sin! 
I shall not see her: you will go; 
You and all that she loves so: 
Not me! not me! Oh, no, no, no! ' 
Colourless, her long black hair. 
Like seaweed in a tempest tossed 
Tangling astray, to Joan's care 
She yielded like a creature lost: 
Yielded, drooping toward the ground, 
As doth a shape one half-hour drowned, 
And heaved from sea with mast and spar. 
All dark of its immortal star. 
And on that tender heart, inured 
To flatter basest grief, and fight 
Despair upon the brink of night. 
She suffered herself to sink, assured 
Of refuge; and her ear inclined 
To comfort; and her thoughts resigned 
To counsel; her wild hair let brush 
From off her weeping brows; and shook 
With many little sobs that took 
Deeper-drawn breaths, till into sighs 
Long sighs they sank; and to the ' hush! ' 
Of Joan's gentle chide, she sought 
Childlike to check them as she ought, 
153: 



POEMS WEITTEN IN YOUTH 

Looking up at ber infantwise. 

And Willie, gazing- on them both, 

Shivered with bliss through blood and brain, 

To see the darling of his troth 

Like a maternal angel strain 

The sinful and the sinless child 

At once on either breast, and there 

In peace and promise reconciled 

Unite them: nor could Nature's care 

With subtler sweet beneficence 

Have fed the springs of penitence. 

Still keeping true, though harshly tried, 

The vital prop of human pride. 



164 



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SCATTERED POEMS 



INVITATION TO THE COUNTRY 

Now 'tis Spring on wood and wold, 

Early Spring that shivers with cold, 

But gladdens, and gathers, day by day, 

A lovelier hue, a warmer ray, 

A sweeter song, a dearer ditty; 

Ouzel and throstle, new-mated and gay. 

Singing their bridals on every spray — 

Oh, hear them, deep in the songless City! 

Cast off the yoke of toil and smoke. 

As Spring is casting winter's grey. 

As serpents cast their skins away: 

And come, for the Country awaits thee with pity; 

And longs to bathe thee in her delight. 

And take a new joy in thy kindling sight; 

And I no less, by day and night. 

Long for thy coming, and watch for, and w^ait thee, 

And wonder what duties can thus belate thee. 

Dry-fruited firs are dropping their cones, 
And vista'd avenues of pines 
Take richer green, give fresher tones, 
As morn after morn the glad sun shines. 

Primrose tufts peep over the brooks. 
Fair faces amid moist decay! 
The rivulets run with the dead leaves at play, 
The leafless elms are alive with the rooks. 
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SCATTEKED POEMS 

Over the meadows the cowslips are springing, 
The marshes are thick with king-cup gold, 
Clear is the cry of the lambs in the fold, 
The skylark is singing, and singing, and singing. 

Soon comes the cuckoo when April is fair, 
And her blue eye the brighter the more it may weep: 
The frog and the butterfly wake from their sleep, 
Each to its element, water and air. 

Mist hangs still on every hill, 

And curls up the valleys at eve; but noon 

Is fullest of Spring; and at midnight the moon 

Gives her westering throne to Orion's bright zone. 

As he slopes o'er the darkened world's repose; 

And a lustre in eastern Sirius glows. 

Come, in the season of opening buds; 

Come, and molest not the otter that whistles 

Unlit by the moon, 'mid the wet winter bristles 

Of willow, half-drowned in the fattening floods. 

Let him catch his cold fish without fear of a gun, 

And the stars shall shield him, and thou wilt shun! 

And every little bird under the sun 

Shall know that the bounty of Spring doth dwell 

In the winds that blow, in the waters that run, 

And in the breast of man as well. 



THE SWEET 0' THE YEAR 

Now the frog, all lean and weak, 

Yawning from his famished sleep, 
Water in the ditch doth seek. 

Fast as he can stretch and leap: 
' Marshy king-cups burning near. 
Tell him 'tis the sweet o' the year. 

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SCATTEEED POEMS 

Now the ant works up his mound 

In the mouldered piny soil, 
And above the busy ground 

TaJkes the joy of earnest toil: 

Dropping pine-cones, dry and sere, 
Warn him 'tis the sweet o' the year. 

Now the chrysalis on the wall 

Cracks, and out the creature springs, 
Eaptures in his body small, 

Wonders on his dusty wings: 

Bells and cups, all shining clear. 
Show him 'tis the sweet o' the year. 

Now the brown bee, wild and wise. 

Hums abroad, and roves and roams, 
Storing in his wealthy thighs 

Treasure for the golden combs: 
Dewy buds and blossoms dear 
Whisper 'tis the sweet o' the year. 

Now the merry maids so fair 

Weave the wreaths and choose the queen. 
Blooming in the open air. 

Like fresh flowers upon the green; 
Spring, in every thought sincere, 
Thrills them with the sweet o' the year. 

Now the lads, all quick and gay. 

Whistle to the browsing herds. 
Or in the twilight pastures grey 

Learn the use of whispered words: 
First a blush, and then a tear. 
And then a smile, 1' the sweet o' the year. 

Now the May-fly and the fish 

Play again from noon to night; 
Every breeze begets a wish, 

JJvery motion means delight: 

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SCATTERED POEMS 

Heaven high over heath and mere. 
Crowns with blue the sweet o' the year. 

Now all Nature is alive, 

Bird and beetle, man and mole; 
Bee-like goes the human hive, 

Lark-like sings the soaring soul: 
Hearty faith and honest cheer 
Welcome in the sweet o' the year. 



THE SONG OF COURTESY 
I 

When Sir Gawain was led to his bridal-bed, 
By Arthur's knights in scorn God-sped: — 
How, think you, he felt? 

O the bride within 
Was yellow and dry as a snake's old skin 

Loathly as sin! 

Scarcely faceable. 

Quite unembraceable; 
With a hog's bristle on a hag's chin! — 
Gentle Gawain felt as should we, 
Little of Love's soft fire knew he: 
But he was the Knight of Courtesy. 



n 



When that evil lady he lay beside 
Bade him turn to greet his bride. 
What, think you, he did? 

O, to spare her pain. 
And let not his loathing her loathliness vain 

Mirror too plain, 
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SCATTERED POEMS 

Sadly, sighingly. 

Almost dyingly, 
Turned lie and kissed her once and again. 
Like Sir Gawain, gentles, should we? 
Silent, all! But for pattern agree 
There's none like the Knight of Courtesy. 



Ill 



Sir Gawain sprang up amid laces and curls: 
Kisses are not wasted pearls: — 
What clung in his arms? 

O, a maiden flower, 
Burning with blushes the sweet bride-bower, 

Beauty her dower! 

Breathing perfumingly, 

Shall I live bloomingly. 
Said she, by day, or the bridal hour? 
Thereat he clasped her, and whispered he, 
Thine, rare bride, the choice shall be. 
Said she. Twice blest is Courtesy! 



IV 



Of gentle Sir Gawain they had no sport. 
When it was morning in Arthur's court; 
What, think you, they cried? 

Now, life and eyes! 
This bride is the very Saint's dream of a prize, 

Fresh from the skies! 

See ye not. Courtesy 

Is the true Alchemy, 
Tiirning to gold all it touches and tries? 
Like the true knight, so may we 
Make the basest that there be 
Beautiful by Courtesy! 

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SCATTERED POEMS 



THE THREE MAIDENS 

There were three maidens met on the highway; 

The sun was down, the night was late: 
And two sang loud with the birds of May, 

O the nightingale is merry with its mate. 

Said they to the youngest, Why walk you there so still? 

The land is dark, the night is late: 
O, but the heart in my side is ill, 

And the nightingale will languish for its mate. 

Said they to the youngest. Of lovers there is store; 

The moon mounts up, the night is late: 
O, I shall look on man no more. 

And the nightingale is dumb without its mate. 

Said they to the youngest. Uncross your arms and sing: 
The moon mounts high, the night is late: 

O my dear lover can hear no thing. 

And the nightingale sings only to its mate. 

They slew him in revenge, and his true-love was his lure: 

The moon is pale, the night is late: 
His grave is shallow on the moor; 

O the nightingale is dying for its mate. 

His blood is on his breast, and the moss-roots at his hair: 

The moon is chill, the night is late: 
But I will lie beside him there: 

O the nightingale is dying for its mate. 



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SCATTEEED POEMS 



THE CEOWN OF LOVE 

O might I load my arms with thee. 
Like that young lover of Komance 

Who loved and gained so gloriously 
The fair Princess of France! 

Because he dared to love so high, 

He, bearing her dear weight, shall speed 
To where the mountain touched on sky: 

So the proud king decreed. 

Unhalting he must bear her on. 

Nor pause a space to gather breath, 

And on the height she will be won; — 
And she was won in death! 

Eed the far summit flames with morn, 
While in the plain a glistening Court 

Surrounds the king who practised scorn 
Through such a mask of sport. 

She leans into his arms; she lets 

Her lovely shape be clasped: he fares. 

God speed him whole! The knights make bets: 
The ladies lift soft prayers. 

O have you seen the deer at chase? 

O have you seen the wounded kite? 
So boundingly he runs the race, 

So wavering grows his flight. 

-My lover! linger here, and slake 

Thy thirst, or me thou wilt not win. 

-See'st thou the tumbled heavens? they break! 
They beckon us up and in. 

163 



SCATTERED POEMS 

-Ah, hero-love! unloose thy hold: 

O drop me like a cursed thing. 

-See'st thou the crowded swards of gold? 
They wave to us Rose and Ring. 

-O death-white mouth! O cast me down! 

Thou diest? Then with thee I die. 
-See'st thou the angels with their Crown? 

We twain have reached the sky. 



LINES TO A FEIEND VISITING AMEKICA 

I 

Now farewell to you! you are 
One of my dearest, whom I trust: 
Now follow you the Western star. 
And cast the old world off as dust. 



II 



From many friends adieu! adieu! 
The quick heart of the word therein. 
Much that we hope for hangs with you: 
We lose you, but we lose to win. 



Ill 

The beggar-king, November, frets: 
His tatters rich with Indian dyes 
Goes hugging: we our season's debts 
Pay calmly, of the Spring forewise. 
164 



SCATTEEED POEMS 



IV 



We send our worthiest; can no less, 
If we would now be read aright, — 
To that great people who may bless 
Or curse mankind: they have the might. 



V 



The proudest seasons find their graves, 
And we, who would not be wooed, must court. 
We have let the blunderers and the waves 
Divide us, and the devil had sport. 



VI 



The blunderers and the waves no more 
Shall sever kindred sending forth 
Their worthiest from shore to shore 
For welcome, bent to prove their worth. 



VII 

Go you and such as you afloat. 

Our lost kinsfellowship to revive. 

The battle of the antidote 

Is tough, though silent: may you thrive! 



VIII 

I, when in this North wind I see 
The straining red woods blown awry, 
Feel shuddering like the winter tree. 
All vein and artery on cold sky. 

165 



SCATTERED POEMS 



IX 



The leaf that clothed me is torn away; 
My friend is as a flying seed. 
Ay, true; to bring replenished day 
Light ebbs, but I am bare, and bleed. 



What husky habitations seem 
These comfortable sayings! they fell. 
In some rich year become a dream: — 
So cries my heart, the infidel! . . . 



XI 



Oh! for the strenuous mind in quest, 
Arabian visions could not vie 
With those broad wonders of the West, 
And would I bid you stay? Not I! 



XII 

The strange experimental land 
Where men continually dare take 
Niagara leaps; — unshattered stand 
'Twixt fall and fall; — for conscience' sake, 



XIII 

Drive onward like a flood's increase; — 
Fresh rapids and abysms engage; — 
(We live — we die) scorn fireside peace. 
And, as a garment, put on rage, 

166 



SCATTERED POEMS 



XIV 

Eather than bear God's reprimand, 
By rearing on a full fat soil 
Concrete of sin and sloth; — this land. 
You will observe it coil in coil. 



XV 

The land has been discover'd long 
The people we have yet to know; 
Themselves they know not, save that strong 
For good and evil still they grow. 



XVI 

Nor know they us. Yea, well enough 
In that inveterate machine 
Through which we speak the printed stuff 
Daily, with voice most hugeous, mien 



XVII 

Tremendous: — as a lion's show 
The grand menagerie paintings hide: 
Hear the drum beat, the trombones blow! 
The poor old Lion lies inside! . . - 



XVIII 

It is not England that they hear, 
But mighty Mammon's pipers, trained 
To trumpet out his moods, and stir 
His sluggish soul: her voice is chained: 
167 



SCATTERED POEMS 



XIX 



Almost her spirit seems moribund! 
O teach them, 'tis not she displays 
The panic of a purse rotund, 
Eternal dread of evil days, — 



XX 

That haunting spectre of success 

Which shows a heart sunk low in the girths: 

Not England answers nobleness, — 

' Live for thyself: thou art not earth's.' 



XXI 

Not she, when struggling manhood tries 
For freedom, air, a hopefuller fate. 
Points out the planet, Compromise, 
And shakes a mild reproving pate: 



XXII 

Says never: ' I am well at ease, 
My sneers upon the weak I shed: 
The strong have my cajoleries: 
And those beneath my feet I tread.' 



XXIII 

Nay, but 'tis said for her, great Lord! 
The misery's there! The shameless one 
Adjures mankind to sheathe the sword. 
Herself not yielding what it won: — 
168 



SCATTEEED POEMS 



XXIV 

Her sermon at cock-crow doth preach, 
On sweet Prosperity — or greed. 
* Lo ! as the beasts feed, each for each, 
God's blessings let us take, and feed I ' 



XXV 

Ungrateful creatures crave a part — 

She tells them firmly she is full; 

Lest sheared sheep hurt her tender heart 

With bleating, stops her ears with wool: — 



XXVI 

Seized sometimes by prodigious qualms 
(Nightmares of bankruptcy and death), — 
Showers down in lumps a load of alms. 
Then pants as one who has lost a breath; 



XXVII 

Believes high heaven, whence favours flow, 
Too kind to ask a sacrifice 
For what it specially doth bestow: — 
Gives she, 'tis generous, cheese to mice. 



XXVIII 

She saw the young Dominion strip 
For battle with a grievous wrong. 
And curled a noble Norman lip. 
And looked with half an eye sidelong; 
169 



SCATTEKED POEMS 



XXIX 

And in stout Saxon wrote her sneers, 
Denounced the waste of blood and coin. 
Implored the combatants, with tears, 
Never to think they could rejoin. 



XXX 

Oh! was it England that, alas! 
Turned sharp the victor to cajole? 
Behold her features in the glass: 
A monstrous semblance mocks her soul! 



XXXI 

A false majority, by stealth. 
Have got her fast, and sway the rod: 
A headless tyrant built of wealth. 
The hypocrite, the belly-God. 



XXXII 

To him the daily hymns they raise: 
His tastes are sought: his will is done: 
He sniffs the putrid steam of praise. 
Place for true England here is none! 



XXXIII 

But can a distant race discern 
The difference 'twixt her and him? 
My friend, that will you bid them learn. 
He shames and binds her, head and limb. 

170 



SCATTERED POEMS 



XXXIV 

Old wood has blossoms of this sort. 
Though sound at core, she is old wood. 
If freemen hate her, one retort 
She has; but one! — ' You are my blood.' 



XXXV 

A poet, half a prophet, rose 
In recent days, and called for power. 
I love him; but his mountain prose — 
His Alp and valley and wild flower — 



XXXVI 

Proclaimed our weakness, not its source. 
What medicine for disease had he? 
Whom summoned for a show of force? 
Our titular aristocracy! 



XXXVII 

Why, these are great at City feasts; 
From City riches mainly rise: 
'Tis well to hear them, when the beasts 
That die for us they eulogize! 



XXXVIII 

But these, of all the liveried crew 
Obeisant in Mammon's walk. 
Most deferent ply the facial screw, 
The spinal bend, submissive talk. 
171 



SCATTERED POEMS 



XXXIX 

Small fear that they will run to books 
(At least the better form of seed) ! 
I, too, have hoped from their good looks, 
And fables of their Northman breed; — 



XL 



Have hoped that they the land would head 

In acts magnanimous; but, lo, 

When fainting heroes beg for bread 

They frown: where they are driven they go. 



XLI 

Good health, my friend! and may your lot 
Be cheerful o'er the Western rounds. 
This butter-woman's market-trot 
Of verse is passing market-bounds. 



XLII 

Adieu! the sun sets; he is gone. 
On banks of fog faint lines extend: 
Adieu! bring back a braver dawn 
To England, and to me my friend. 



November 15th, 1867. 



172 



SCATTERED POEMS 



ON THE DANGER OF WAR 

Avert, High Wisdom, never vainly wooed. 

This threat of War, that shows a land brain-sick! 

When nations gain the pitch where rhetoric 

Seems reason they are ripe for cannon's food. 

Dark looms the issue though the cause be good. 

But with the doubt 'tis our old devil's trick. 

O now the down-slope of the lunatic 

Illumine lest we redden of that brood. 

For not since man in his first view of thee 

Ascended to the heavens giving sign 

Within him of deep sky and sounded sea. 

Did he unforfeiting thy laws transgress; 

In peril of his blood his ears incline 

To drums whose loudness is their emptiness. 



TO CARDINAL MANNING 

I, wakeful for the skylark voice in men, 
Or straining for the angel of the light, 
Eebuked am I by hungry ear and sight. 
When I behold one lamp that through our fen 
Goes hourly where most noisome; hear again 
A tongue that loathsomeness will not affright 
From speaking to the soul of us forthright 
What things our craven senses keep from ken. 
This is the doing of the Christ; the way 
He went on earth; the service above guile 
To prop a tyrant creed: it sings, it shines; 
Cries to the Mammonites: Allay, allay 
Such misery as by these present signs 
Brings vengeance down; nor them who rouse revile. 
173 



SCATTEEED POEMS 



TO CHILDKEN: FOE TYRANTS 



Strike not thy dog with a stick! 

I did it yesterday: 
Not to undo though I gained 
The Paradise: heavy it rained 

On Kobold's flanks, and he lay. 



II 



Little Bruno, our long-ear pup, 

From his hunt had come back to my heel. 
I heard a sharp worrying sound. 
And Bruno foamed on the ground, 

With Koby as making a meal. 



Ill 

I did what I could not undo 

Were the gates of the Paradise shut 
Behind me: I deemed it was just. 
I left Koby crouched in the dust, 

Some yards from the woodman's hut. 



IV 



He whimpered his welting, and I 

Scarce thought it enough for him: so, 

By degrees, through the upper box-grove, 

Within me an old story hove. 

Of a man and a dog: you shall know. 

174 



SCATTERED POEMS 



The dog was of novel breed, 

The Shannon retriever, untried: 
His master, an old Irish lord, 
In an oaken armchair snored 

At midnight, whisky beside. 

VI 

Perched up a desolate tower. 

Where the black storm-wind was a whip 
To set it nigh spinning, these two 
Were alone, like the last of a crew. 

Outworn in a wave-beaten ship. 

VII 

The dog lifted muzzle, and sniffed; 

'He quitted his couch on the rug. 
Nose to floor, nose aloft; whined, barked; 
And finding the signals unmarked. 

Caught a hand in a death-grapple tug. 

YIII 

He pulled till his master jumped 

For fury of wrath, and laid on 
With the length of a tough knotted staff, 
Fit to drive the life flying like chaff, 

And leave a sheer carcase anon. 

IX 

That done, he sat, panted, and cursed 

The vile cross of this brute: nevermore 

Would he house it to rear such a cur! 

The dog dragged his legs, pained to stir. 

Eyed his master, dropped, barked at the door. 

175 



SCATTEKED POEMS 



X 

Then his master raised head too, and sniffed: 
It struck him the dog had a sense 

That honoured both dam and sire. 

You have guessed how the tower was afire. 
The Shannon retriever dates thence. 

XI 

I mused: saw the pup ease his heart 
Of his instinct for chasing, and sink 

Overwrought by excitement so new: 

A scene that for Koby to view, 

Was the seizure of nerves in a link. 

XII 

And part sympathetic, and part 

Imitatively, raged my poor brute; 

And I, not thinking of ill. 

Doing eviller: nerves are still 

Our savage too quick at the root. 

XIII 

They spring us: I proved it, albeit 

I played executioner then 
For discipline, justice, the like. 
Yon stick I had handy to strike, 

Should have warned of the tyrant in men. 

XIV 

You read in your History books. 

How the Prince in his youth had a mind 
For governing gently his land. 
Ah, the use of that weapon at hand. 

When the temper is other than kind! 

176 



SCATTERED POEMS 



XV 



At home all was well; Koby's ribs 

Not so sore as my thoughts: if, beguiled, 
He forgives me, his criminal air 
Throws a shade of Llewellyn's despair 

For the hound slain for saving his child. 



A STAVE OF EOVING TIM 

(Addressed to certain friendly Tramps) 

I 

The wind is East, the wind is West, 

Blows in and out of haven; 
The wind that blows is the wind that's best, 

And croak, my jolly raven! 
If here awhile we jigged and laughed. 

The like we will do yonder; 
For he's the man who masters a craft. 
And light as a lord can wander. 

So, foot the measure. Roving Tim, 

And croak, my jolly raven! 
The wind according to its whim 
Is in and out of haven. 



II 



You live in rows of snug abodes, 

With gold, maybe, for counting; 

And mine's the beck of the rainy roads 
Against the sun amounting. 

177 



SCATTERED POEMS 

I take the day as it behaves, 

Nor shiver when 'tis airy; 
But comes a breeze, all you are on waves, 
Sick chickens o' Mother Carey! 

So, now for next, cries Eoving- Tim, 

And croak, my jolly raven! 
The wind according to its whim 
Is in and out of haven. 



Ill 



Sweet lass, you screw a lovely leer. 

To make a man consider. 
If you were up with the auctioneer, 

I'd be a handsome bidder. 
But wedlock clips the rover's wing; 

She tricks him fly to spider; 
And when we get to fights in the Ring, 
It's trumps when you play outsider. 

So, wrench and split, cries Roving Tim, 

And croak, my jolly raven! 
The wind according to its whim. 
Is in and out of haven. 



IV 



Along my winding way I know 

A shady dell that's winking; 
The very corner for Self and Co 

To do a world of thinking. 
And shall I this? and shall I that? 

Till Nature answers, ne'ther! 
strike match and light your pipe in your hat. 
Rejoicing in sound shoe-leather! 

So lead along, cries Roving Tim, 

And croak, my jolly raven! 
The wind according to its whim. 
Is in and out of haven. 
178 



SCATTERED POEMS 



V 



A cunning hand'll hand you bread, 

With freedom for your capers. 

I'm not so sure of a cunning head; 

It steers to pits or vapours. 
But as for Life, we'll bear in sight 

The lesson Nature teaches; 
Regard it in a sailoring light, 

And treat it like thirsty leeches. 

So, fly your jib, cries Eoving Tim, 

And top your boom, old raven! 
The w^ind according to its whim 
Is in and out of haven. 



VI 



She'll take, to please her dame and dad, 

The shopman nicely shaven. 
She'll learn to think o' the marching lad 
When perchers show they're craven. 
You say the shopman piles a heap, 

While I perhaps am fasting; 
And bless your wits, it haunts him in sleep, 
His tin-kettle chance of lasting! 

So hail the road, cries Roving Tim, 

And hail the rain, old raven! 
The wind according to its whim 
Is in and out of haven. 



VII 

He's half a wife, yon pecker bill; 

A book and likewise preacher. 
With any soul, in a game of skill. 

He'll prove your over-reacher. 

17U 



SCATTERED POEMS 

The reason is, his brains are bent 
On doing things right single. 
You'd wish for them when pitching your tent 
At night in a whirly dingle! 

So, oif we go, cries Roving Tim, 

And on we go, old raven! 
The wind according to its whim 
Is in and out of haven. 



vin 

Lord, no, man's lot is not for bliss; 

To call it woe is blindness: 
It's here a kick, and it's there a kiss, 

And here and there a kindness. 
He starts a hare and calls her joy; 

He runs her down to sorrow: 

The dogs within him bother the boy. 

But 'tis a new day to-morrow. 

So, I at helm, cries Roving Tim, 
And you at bow, old raven! 
The wind according to its whim 
Is in aud out of haven. 



180 



SCATTERED POEMS 

ON" HEAEING THE NEWS FEOM VENICE 

(The Death of Robert Browning) 

Now dumb is he who waked the world to speak. 

And voiceless hangs the world beside his bier. 

Our words are sobs, our cry of praise a tear: 

We are the smitten mortal, we the weak. 

We see a spirit on Earth's loftiest peak 

Shine, and wing hence the way he makes more clear: 

See a great Tree of Life that never sere 

Dropped leaf for aught that age or storms might wreak. 

Such ending is not Death: such living shows 

What wide illumination brightness sheds 

From one big heart, to conquer man's old foes: 

The coward, and the tyrant, and the force 

Of all those weedy monsters raising heads 

When Song is murk from springs of turbid source. 

December 13, 1889. 



THE EIDDLE FOR MEN 



This Riddle rede or die. 
Says History since our Flood, 
To warn her sons of power: — 

It can be truth, it can be lie; 

Be parasite to twist awry; 

The drouthy vampire for your blood; 

The fountain of the silver flower; 

A brand, a lure, a web, a crest; 

Supple of wax or tempered steel; 
181 



SCATTERED POEMS 

The spur to honour, snake in nest: 
'Tis as you will with it to deal; 
To wear upon the breast, 
Or trample under heel. 



II 



And read you not aright, 
Says Nature, still in red 
Shall History's tale be writ! 
For solely thus you lead to lig-ht 
The trailing chapters she must write, 
And pass my fiery test of dead 
Or living through the furnace-pit: 
Dislinked from who the softer hold 
In grip of brute, and brute remain: 
Of whom the woeful tale is told, 
How for one short Sultanic reign, 
Their bodies lapse to mould, 
Their souls behowl the plain- 



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